Shaming
by DJLiopleurodon
Summary: A tiny camera accidentally follows Clint home after a mission and captures some rather compromising footage. (Actual Ao3 Title: S-l-u-t shaming)
1. Firefly 4 Back Online

_**Date:**_ _September 6th, 2012_

* * *

"Is that what it looks like? _Damn_. Is that Barton and Romanoff."

"Yes..."

"How did you get this? Are they... Is this what I think it is?"

"This is the data dump from Firefly Four. I set it to follow Barton on his mission, but it went dark right after evac and I marked it down as lost. But it just popped back online and is dumping... _this_. Oh, God, I'm so _fucked_!"

"Is this a live feed? Damn, I knew he was hittin' that."

"Yes, um, it's live. Plus there's three days worth of footage coming down. We were testing the extended battery and I just figured it died unexpectedly, but it must have just lost the connection. It's been following him around recording everything he does. It's a hell of a field test for the cloaking—I mean if fucking _Hawkeye_ doesn't see it—But then, he seems, um, kind of distracted. I need to recall it, but I'm afraid they'll notice if it tries to leave her quarters. I'm so dead. We are so very fucked."

"Is it all like that? You have three days worth of him eating her out?"

"Well, I haven't watched _all_ of it. But it's not all so—uh, _personal_. She's away on her own mission most of the time. So a lot of it is just him going to briefings and drinking coffee and shit. It's unbelievable how much coffee. Ugh...We are _so_ fucked."

"You keep saying that, Jones. What do you mean ' _we_?' I'm walking out of here and forgetting I EVER saw this."

"Ok. _I'm_ so fucked. They are going to _kill_ me."

"Dude, if you are very, _very_ lucky, _**he**_ will kill you. _She_ wouldn't be that merciful."

"What the hell am I going to do? Fury will be notified instantly if I try to delete any data. But I have _hours_ of this and when they aren't together, he's training or cleaning his guns and oiling his bow and waxing bow strings and sharpening his knives and fletching arrows... If Fury finds out about them because of me—Oh, man, I'm so fucked."

"Just bury it in the archive."

"Logged as what? _BartonGoesDownOnRomanoff-dot-mpeg_? _RomanoffSucksOffBarton-dot-mpeg_? _HawkeyeNeverFuckingMisses-dot-mpeg_?"

"Holy shit! You have that, too?"

"Yeah, I swear to God, it goes on for like five hours and he doesn't miss once."

"Not him target practicing, you moron. You have video of her going down on him? I wanna see."

"What happened to ' _I'm walking out of here and forgetting I ever saw this_ ,' Rumlow?"

"Yeah, but I'd love to see that stuck-up, ice-bitch on her knees. Always thought she was a dyke."

"Just because she is immune to your particular brand of charm—Wait, I thought you just said you knew she and Barton were together."

"Whatever. I want a copy of that, Jones."

"No. You need to forget you ever saw this. _**I**_ need to forget I ever saw this. You're right; this is getting logged as test footage and hopefully no one will ever look at it."

"I'm your superior officer. You aren't allowed to hide such valuable intel. Drop a copy in my secure inbox before you bury it."

"...like hell, sir. I'll go to Fury myself before I turn this over to you or anyone else. _Agent_ Romanoff is entitled to her privacy regardless of what you think of her."

"You didn't seem to have a problem watching it."

"I'm the technician responsible for the Firefly program. Four was performing aberrantly so it's my job to figure out why it stopped reporting and why it came back online and what it was doing. It also went to briefings with Barton. I shouldn't have seen any of that. Actually, yeah, I can dump it all as Level Seven and mark it as testing and debug footage...How the hell it made it past all of the defenses is another question. That thing had unfettered access to..."

"I want all that footage. People should see that cunt like she really is."

"There... just tagged it as Level Seven. Coulson can figure out what to do with it when he gets back. We don't have clearance so I can't give you access to those briefings. You'll need Level Seven clearance before..."

" _That's_ an order."

"With all due respect, sir. Fuck off _. "_


	2. RomanoffSucksOffBarton-dot-MPEG

_**Date:**_ _September 4th, 2012_

* * *

Clint regretted sleeping on the short hop back to HQ. The brief nap didn't dispel his exhaustion; his muscles had stiffened to near immobility and his cuts and scrapes throbbed and smarted.

Dealing with Rick, the firefly technician, even over comm had been almost more than he could stand. He felt bad that he'd lost the tiny flying camera, even if he hadn't wanted to take it along to begin with. It's not like he was a fucking Kardashian, after all.

"Just forget it's there," Rick told him.

So he had. It apparently stopped transmitting shortly after he'd called for evac. Clint wondered if he'd swallowed it. The tiny hovering firefly cameras were designed to be nearly invisible with an uncannily accurate "cameraman AI" that was supposed to select the best position for capturing the action. The thought of the little gadget floating around filming the coffee in his stomach was only slightly less unpleasant than what Jones might suggest to retrieve it.

Natasha, never one to leap up and fuss over him, came quickly to help him as he dragged in through the door, her earnest concern cracking her cool manner. He took in her light makeup, the dim lights and her sexy but simple clothes and surmised her intentions with a mixture of gratitude and regret.

"Tasha, I'm tired, I'm sore and I'm really filthy..." He hitched his rucksack off and found his shoulder frozen, hissing in pain as the joint refused to budge.

Natasha stretched up on her toes, took the strap and hoisted the sack to the floor, planting a lingering kiss on the corner of his grimace. She pulled away and wrinkled her nose with a wry smile, "you _could_ use a shower. C'mon."

She took his left hand, examining his tightly curled fingers as she led him. Though ambidextrous, he tended to draw with his left and those joints were rigid and swollen from the relentless nocking and drawing. His gloves left tidelines of dusty exposed skin and grimy creases from the leather. She smoothed the digits between her palms and felt them involuntarily return to the uncompromising position he'd probably held for hours.

The bathroom quickly filled with steam and she smiled more warmly as he sank back against the counter and inhaled the moist air. The set of his shoulders broadcast his soreness but the strain ebbed from his jaw and the lines around his eyes softened as she attended to him.

She attacked the fastenings of his clothes before he could attempt them; buttons and zippers carefully and deftly managed. Regarding her tired, battered partner in this state of half-undress, she asked, "How'd it go?" as she stooped to deal with his boots.

"Mission accomplished."

"Thought we weren't supposed to say that anymore."

He swiped across his face. "S'over, anyway. We got 'em. Nothing interesting or unusual. 'M just so exhausted. A lot of waiting and then the usual clusterfuck."

He watched her loosen the laces; he'd probably have just cut the knots. The scoop neck of her top slouched and he noticed she wore no bra. In response to his heated examination, a pink flush spread up her throat and her nipples tightened into peaks.

When she rose, she left her soft cotton pants and demurely lacy panties puddled on the floor. Despite his injured hands, he helped lift the edge of her shirt over her head, tracing the contours of her ribs, callouses snagging lightly against her soft cheek.

The coarse fabric of his trousers slid down his hips, weighted by the heavy belt and all the gear clipped to it as he pushed off the counter and she steadied him while he stepped out of the boots and toed off his socks. He barely registered his boxer briefs and t-shirt hitting the tile, pulling her into as chaste an embrace as two naked people could manage.

Her skin, warm and dewy against his chest, reminded him of his own grimy state. He inhaled her fresh clean scent and then limped into the shower. She stepped in behind him but let him hog the spray until the water swirling down the drain grew less dingy and his reopened scrapes ran with fresh red rivulets. She took the washcloth and scrubbed his dirtiest patches and dabbed gingerly at the blood. Coaxed and encouraged, he kissed her more thoroughly, borrowing some of her strength to stay upright as the tension left his muscles, leaving only the fatigue.

Retreating before getting too soaked, she watched him rub bar soap into his hair and offered him a towel when he finally stepped out. He ambled, still dripping, out to the living room after her.

She got two beers from the fridge and handed him one. He took a long pull before sinking wearily onto the couch. She nudged him and gestured and he stretched out on his stomach. She dropped her towel and straddled him, sitting on the swell of his ass. Even as depleted as he felt, he thrilled at the touch of her labia against his spine and groaned as she rested her full weight on his hips.

She started working the knots in his back, using her knowledge of pressure points and leverage to ease them. His dense shoulders slowly progressed from cords of adamantium to warm C4. When his grunts and groans began to take on a pained edge, she switched to open-palmed caresses, soothing his reddened skin, resting her sweating bottle of Heineken on him and making him shiver.

"Over," she ordered, slapping his ass when she hopped up to get them each another beer. She set her bottle down on the table and lay down on top of him after he repositioned, the length of her body a reassuring weight on his. The lingering kisses might have lasted longer until the note of pain in his sighs reminded her that much more of him needed her attention.

She worked his chest, biceps and abs with the same untiring, professional skill she'd lavished on his back, forcing the thick pectoral muscles to relax and smirking as he shuddered when she smoothed her open palms over the spot where his powerful dorsal muscles joined his sides. Natasha's thumbs kneaded and stretched the sore tendons in his forearms, rotated his stiff wrists and wrung his fingers until they uncurled and his hands relaxed their claw-like rigidity. He moaned and stretched his lower back and hips as she massaged his belly and, all the while, pretended to ignore his awakened erection.

As if she had any doubt.

He sat up when she climbed off him this second time and regarded the contented expression and slight alcohol flush that had replaced his pale, drawn exhaustion. "Better?" she inquired.

"Much," he answered, watching her through slitted eyelids, "thank you."

She stretched luxuriously, arching her back, and caressing her breasts as she ran her hands up her chest. A sardonic grin crooked his mouth as he sat up, and drained the rest of the beer, its tepid warmth reminding him how long she'd been attending to him.

He reached for her, but she scooted away and on to the floor. She knelt and smiled coyly and let her palms travel up his inner thighs. His sigh was interrupted by a yawn. "Is Hawkeye ready for beddy-bye," she mocked with a coquettish, exaggerated pout.

"I'm never too tired to... ahh..." she silenced him when she took him into her mouth.

Clint leaned back on the couch; she traced the midline of his body with her eyes, following the trail of sandy hair up to his navel, over the contours of his abs and the swell of his chest, noting the scars and imperfections, the freckles and battle damage imprinted into his flesh, up to the bared curve of his throat; his body bowed with sweet tension.

Twining his fingers in her hair, he stroked the back of her neck, lightly following her movements as she caressed him with her lips and tongue. He groaned her name and gave himself up completely to her, riding the waves.

As his breathing grew harsher and his muscles more rigid, she increased her pace and pressure, pushing him over the edge rather than drawing it out. Perspiration etched his skin and he gasped as the last vestiges of tautness left him and he melted back against the cushions.

She met his hooded gaze and sleepy smile with a satisfied smirk.

"You're amazing," he said reverently, his hand on the curve of her hip as she stood before him.

She took his hand and urged him up. He nearly stumbled and she wrapped her arm around him in a bemused half-embrace, half-one-armed carry. "And you are dead on your feet. You. Bed. Now. Sleep."

"But...," his brow creased, disappointed that she wasn't expecting him to return the favor.

"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"Can I watch?" He peered at her askance.

She laughed, abashed, "I didn't mean that. God, you are dead-weight. Stand up straight." She slapped his bare butt and wriggled away, leaving him to walk under his own power.

"Will you stay?"

"Can't. Got a briefing at 5 and wheels up right after."

"Tasha, that's in 3 hours," his voice sounding extra sympathetic in anticipation of her exhaustion.

"I know. I slept some before you got here. I even changed your sheets."

He stumbled over a pile of linens in the dark on his way to his bed. Sitting on the edge, he mumbled, "don't remember that being there..."

"I said I _changed_ your sheets. You can do your own damn laundry." She kicked the heap of bedclothes out of the way and he grunted contentedly as he lay on the crisp cotton.

He took her hand and pulled her close. "Stay," he whispered against her lips. Her resolve almost broke when his calloused hand slid up her thigh. The cadence of his breathing deepened and she glanced at the pillow beside him; his snore snagged in his throat when she broke the kiss.

Stroking his hair, she hesitated long enough to be sure he was out, cast one last glance at the soft warm space beside him and drew the blankets up.

The tiny firefly hovered, unnoticed in the doorway as she slipped her clothes back on, belted her coat and set the automated start on his coffee maker. After she left, the device made a sweep of the silent apartment and powered down on a nearby shelf, waiting for it's subject to stir.

His languid murmur of "love you, Nat..." wasn't enough to awaken the device.


	3. BartonGoesDownOnRomanoff-dot-MPEG

_**Date:**_ _September 6th, 2012_

* * *

Natasha's terse phone call shot Clint's plans all to hell.

After most short missions, she strolled in like a woman returning from a relaxing weekend jaunt. A quick shower and she was usually in the mood for a bite at the all-night diner they frequented, drinks on the rooftop and then some athletic, endorphin-releasing sex; generally, but not always, in that order. Even when the mission was rougher, like he'd anticipated this one to be, she wanted to change into comfortable clothes, order pizza, have some wine and binge on Netflix. Usually by the time the Chromecast asked if they were still watching, their evening had dissolved into less athletic, but no less endorphin-releasing sex.

She preferred white wine, even with pizza, foodie rules be damned; _even_ he knew you weren't supposed to pair Chardonnay with anything with red sauce. She'd banned him from using her crystal after several glasses had fallen victim to the aforementioned endorphin sex so he already had some acrylic cups chilling in the fridge.

The tension in her voice said volumes, as did the fact that she made a call to tell him her ETA. She could easily have texted, but she called, reaching out for the life-line they represented to each other.

Clint quickly made himself a sandwich, rummaged around in her bathroom and idly wondered if he'd ever get to see the rest of _Breaking Bad_. He also wondered just how ugly the mission had been.

He met her at the door. She numbly handed him her boots and shook her head when he asked if she was hungry.

"FUBAR?" he asked.

"No. Not really. Just..." she rubbed her brow, trying to smooth away the strained frown, "old memories," she finished. "It's fine. I'm just tired." She hesitated and then leaned into him, accepting the comfort he offered. Helping Natasha with 'old memories' was a delicate balance between letting her be, distracting her, keeping her from retreating and not sustaining a grievous bodily injury.

"I ran you a bath," he said. He wrapped her in a one-armed, not-too-confining hug and touched his lips to the back of her neck. "Go get in, I'll bring you some wine."

Natasha found the bathtub full of steaming water and entirely free of the pressure of expectation when she entered. She tossed her clothes in the hamper and took a few minutes to breathe before she got into the water.

That constant sulky calculation had been the death knell of previous relationships and she thought back to her last blow-up with Matt that began when she accused him of "pouting."

Clint didn't do that. Well, he pouted sometimes; was excellent at it, actually. However, he never pouted because she wasn't interested in sex at any particular moment. He'd shrug, plant a chaste kiss on her cheek and back off.

Or maybe he'd just figured out that that was one of the quickest ways to get her in the mood.

She tried to shake off the rest of the damned mission and the face of the very young woman she'd found herself squaring off against. She was so relieved she hadn't been forced to kill her, even if the girl faced an uncertain future in SHIELD custody.

It had worked out okay for Natasha herself, after all.

Clint brought her Chardonnay in a sturdy coffee mug right after she sank into the bubbles. "Thank you. This is perfect," she sighed as she took the cup and slid forward with an inclination of her head, asking him to join her. The invitation and her smile were very encouraging, he thought; whatever had upset her, it wasn't too traumatic.

She relaxed against his chest in the warm water, resting her wine-mug on his knee and they soaked and sipped in silence. He kissed her neck and noted the smell of smoke clinging to her hair. "Do you want to talk about the mission?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

She shook her head. He drained the wine from his cup and used the mug to douse her hair. He lathered and rinsed, wincing more than she did when he tugged on a snarl. He let her comb the conditioner through her locks and then helped her rinse it out. He immersed her fancy bath pouf in the water and applied some lavender soap.

He scrubbed her back and shoulders, before abandoning the soapy sponge and letting his strong hands do the work on her feet and lower body. Her calves, hips, and thighs bore the brunt of her hardest use; like his upper body, those highly developed muscles stored her fatigue and tension. He massaged her calves and worked his way up her thighs, driving the ache from the strong quadriceps and hamstrings, his touch growing lighter as he smoothed her more sensitive adductor muscles along her inner thigh.

Natasha melted against him as his ministrations soothed her. Encircling her waist, Clint hugged her close. She craned her neck and turned her face to him, her lips seeking his mouth, drawing on his wordless solace. He traced light circles in the bubbles clinging to her abdomen and slowly ventured higher as she encouraged his exploration by deepening the kiss.

He kneaded the tight muscles of her chest with his fingers while caressing her breasts with his palms. She moaned at the contrast; blunt fingertips probing her tense muscle and smooth skin stimulating her delicate nipples.

Her grip closed around his left wrist and eased his hand back under the water and between her legs. She sighed when he parted her and began to stroke a slow rhythm.

Laying in the bath in the circle of her lover's arms suddenly felt confining. She grew silent as she tried to fight back the rising anxiety, not wanting to shove him away. Clint noticed and stopped, resting his hands on her knees. "You ok?" he asked.

"Not happening for me," she grumbled, sounding annoyed and withdrawn. She stood up and got out, draining her wine before pulling a towel from the heated rack. She started to stiffly towel herself off, but he wrapped her in her bathrobe and took over the task of drying her hair, inexpertly copying the scrunching motion she used on her curls.

She dabbed at the trail of suds sliding down his chest. "My head just isn't there tonight."

"I just want you to feel good, sweetheart," he said, hoping the endearment didn't piss her off.

Luckily, it didn't. She smiled sadly and rested her forehead against him, the feline gesture always a sign that she was finally letting her guard down.

"You took care of me the other day," he reminded. "I'm here for whatever you want. Go get comfortable." He left it up to her to decide what that meant.

She flopped on the living room sofa like a teenager. Still naked, with goose bumps puckering his flesh, he refilled her wine cup and handed it to her.

"Do you want to watch something?" he lifted the small remote, "or are you hungry?"

"I just want to punch somebody," she said wearily and leaned against him when he sat beside her.

"I'm down for that, too." He put his arm around her and she settled her head on his shoulder. "Just don't beat me up too badly, 'kay? I've gotta run some drills with Cap tomorrow and I don't want him to get the wrong idea."

They exchanged a smirk. A few weeks ago, she'd found herself having a _very_ awkward conversation with Rogers about some ill-concealed bruises. A late night had turned into an early morning and a sleepy cuddle had turned into...something else. She never thought about such things since her enhancements didn't allow trivial superficial marks to show for more than a few hours. She'd been late to her briefing with Rogers and hadn't noticed until she caught his expression; pulling her hair up into a messy bun had exposed the poorly-placed purple markings.

"He was concerned about me; it was sweet. I explained it to him."

"Except I'm not sure he believed you. Did they even have hickeys back in 1940? If I go missing in the next few weeks..." he trailed off.

"Nah, I didn't even try to explain hickeys to him," she dismissed, "I just convinced him that you got the worse of it and that I didn't need any of you boys fighting my battles for me."

Clint didn't seem particularly appeased. "Really, though, he does know..."

"Yes, Barton," she rolled her eyes and sighed indulgently, "Steve knows you treat me like a lady... You and Coulson and your Cap-worship, I swear."

She kissed him while he was still trying to sort that out. Tentative and sweet at first, she quickly warmed to the activity; the wine, the bath and Clint's burning skin finally combining to scrape the film of memories from her mind. He noted the change in her demeanor and stepped up his attentions.

He knelt between her legs, bright blue eyes looking up, "Can I try again?" he asked. He flipped her robe open and traced the edges where the fabric lay against her skin. She shivered and bit her lip, nodding as she lay back and consenting by adjusting her position. Without the least hesitation, he ventured up her thigh, kissing and nipping at her skin.

Throwing her calf over his shoulder, she began to moan, quietly at first, reserved coos and soft sighs that were probably more calculated to gratify _him_. That shit wasn't what he wanted from her and it bothered him that she was slipping into that. He decided to remind her that this was about her enjoyment.

Clint rose to the challenge; the breathy sounds abruptly stopped when he introduced one finger and he was rewarded with a much more guttural groan when he added a second. He was determined to wring out some genuine cries of pleasure, the less delicate and demure, the better.

"That's my girl," he whispered against her thigh when he pulled out the first shameless moan. He took her clit in his mouth and strummed against her until she began to gasp out. She became aware of his self-satisfied smirk when the curve of his cheek pressed her inner thigh. She ceased caressing the back of his neck and began to lightly claw at his scalp, urging him on.

Her noises sounded slightly avian and he relished her eroding, crumbling control. Her invocations and mixed-language promises escalated as she moved sinuously, grasping at his shoulders, worrying her own flesh and letting her composure dissolve completely. He ranged up her body with his mouth. Sanguine patches adorned her pale skin and she regarded him with unfocused green eyes; a plea for relief.

Sometimes, he enjoyed holding her here at the cusp and keeping her in this state of torturous, trembling anticipation, but tonight wasn't that time. A few kisses, a few caresses, a few promises and a gesture that he was never quite able to explain but always very happy to demonstrate completed his efforts and she came with a relieved sob.

Still shaking, she opened just one eye to look down at him. "Did you actually say, 'that's my girl?' to me?"

"No, ma'am," he lied, "I treat you like a lady, remember?"

"Well, that's too bad," she sighed, "I was kind of hoping you'd treat me like a cowgirl."

"I like the sound of that..."

"Bedroom?" she asked, standing and letting the robe slide off and tossing it to the floor. "This couch is too soft and I don't like getting rug burns on my knees."

* * *

The puff of the terry cloth settled over Firefly Four. Rick had minimized the window after finally ejecting Rumlow, but the device chirped that it was no longer detecting movement and planning to shut down. He winced as he brought the window back up on his display, afraid of what he might see. He noticed that the camera seemed to have gotten trapped under a towel or some linens.

Rick set it to execute some of its discrete exit procedures; as the firefly disentangled itself, fore and aft cameras still transmitting the live data stream, it was fairly obvious that neither agent was in any danger of noticing Four's departure.


	4. Welcome to Level Four

_**Date:**_ _March 14th, 2014_

* * *

Natasha punched Clint so hard he was already on the ground before he even realized she was in the room.

He rocked to his right side, holding his forearm out defensively to shield his head and spat the blood on to the tile floor. The shafts and fletchings he'd been working on clattered to the floor of the small weapons lab. "Something on your mind, sweetheart?" he asked and quickly drew up his left leg to protect his lower body.

"Don't you 'sweetheart' me, you son of a bitch!"

He rolled deliberately to his feet, and surveyed the chaos her entrance had made of his work station.

"Working on some 'hacker arrows?' Or more hidden camera arrows? How about an arrow that shows some respect? Bet you don't have an arrow that does that."

"If that means blindsiding with a blow to the head, I have a lot of arrows that do that." Clint caught her wrist about two inches before she connected with his jaw and held it in his iron grip, glaring at her. "You got your one shot. What the hell, Na-"

She cut him off by simultaneously bringing her elbow to his collarbone and her knee to his gut. He deflected the elbow and pinioned it, but the other blow thudded off his abdominal muscles and he grunted through his teeth.

Well, he rationalized, wincing with the effort of restraining her, the fact that her last volley was leveled at his stomach and clavicle was a good sign; had she really wanted to hurt him he could think of a dozen more painful places she could have attacked more effectively. Several of which would have probably put his ass back on the floor.

"Are you done?" His voice was level and cold. "Are you going to tell me what's going on or are you going to keep hitting me if I let you go." She stared back into Agent-Barton-of-SHIELD's icy eyes; the eyes of the man who had hunted her to a standstill all those years ago.

The blinding fury wilted under that calculating scrutiny. She nodded once and stepped away from him when he released her.

"You have exactly 30 seconds to explain to me what you were thinking," she commanded. Without the Hawkeye-punching-rage that had propelled her down here, her words sounded sad, even with the hoarse threat still lingering at the back.

"Tasha. What. The. _Fuck._ Are you talking about?"

She thrust a tablet at him. "It's already queued up to Rumlow's favorite part," she snarled.

Clint stared at the screen, recognizing it by the single frozen frame. He looked between his furious partner and the high-def image, mouth open in shock and brows crimped in confusion. He tapped play and watched it in stunned silence for a few seconds before pausing it again. "Nat...? What is this?"

"You had nothing to do with this," she stated, not asking. The hurt, stunned expression assured her that this was not something that he had purposely recorded that had then been stolen.

"I swear to you, Tasha," he said, "I would _never_ record you or us without telling you. You should know that. I remember this night. Really well, actually. It was the night that... Oh, fuck me!" He dropped the tablet on the counter and scrubbed his hand over his face, staring up at the ceiling. "...the night I was testing that mobile camera for Rick Jones. I thought I lost it. I came home, thinking it was gone, but it must have been still active."

"Jones...," Natasha growled. "I bet no one in the world has ever been as grateful for an accidental gamma transformation as that little shit should be right now. I'd make him wish he were dead. Or that you got to him first."

"You know, that's exactly what Jones was afraid of when he uncovered the footage," said a calm voice behind them, "that you'd get to him before Barton, Natasha."

"You knew about this, Phil?" Clint turned on their unflappable handler.

"I did. I'm sorry. Jones came to me as soon as he could and we tried to bury the footage . He lost contact with the firefly but it continued to record you, Clint. Once it came back online, it immediately dumped all its data to the servers. Since it had been in active-field mode, all of the footage was immediately under the 'no data left behind' protocol." Phil pressed on, surprised that neither agent asked how long the camera had been AWOL and decided not to call attention to the fact.

"He didn't want anyone to know it existed, because he respected your privacy, Natasha….and, you scare him."

She pursed her lips and looked uncomfortable.

"Rick's a really good guy. He didn't show it to anyone but me. He even defied the agent-on-duty who demanded to see all of it. It's not easy for a young technician with very little PT to stand up to someone like Brock Rumlow."

"Rumlow," Clint repeated, low and thoughtful. "Was it him? Who sent this out?"

"We can't be sure, without an investigation, but likely."

"How far has it spread?" Clint asked.

"Just SHIELD internal," Natasha answered, "so far."

"We should have been informed. Immediately." Clint slammed his fist on the industrial cabinet.

"Jones didn't want you to know because he didn't want to embarrass you... Or have you mad at him." Coulson looked from the glowering Natasha, blood in her eyes, to Clint, somehow looking more formidable with the fresh bruising on his face. "He seemed to find you two intimidating."

Phil indicated their hostile stances and offensive positions. Natasha stood in the center of the room directly in front of him, commanding the whole space. Clint leaned against the counter and the back wall, arms folded and eyes flicking warily between his partner, his handler and the door.

"I approved Jones' classification of it as test footage and we locked it in a Level Seven archive. Unfortunately, since it _was_ labeled as test and debug footage, it all was downgraded to Level Four after months of no access. I had planned to delete it all then, but in all the chaos, Jones and I both forgot about it. Someone found it and is distributing it within SHIELD. I dropped the ball. I'm so sorry."

Natasha touched Phil's jacket. "I understand, Phil. It's ok."

"He gets a pat on the shoulder for admitting it. I had _literally_ nothing to do with it, and you punched me in the face and tried to knee me in the spine _through_ my body..." He rubbed his stomach and scowled at her and Phil.

"Quit whining," Natasha dismissed. "You look like a total stud being serviced by your whore. Look at the vid; I bring you a beer and you shove my head in your lap."

Clint looked more shocked than when she'd actually struck him. "It wasn't like that... Nat...?" he breathed defensively. Natasha's jaw twinged and she wouldn't look at him, but she relaxed her aggressive posture. Coulson shifted uncomfortably, hearing his agents talk about what he saw on the leaked footage made him more embarrassed than the few moments of it he'd watched.

"You know it wasn't like that!" His voice grew louder as indignation regained the upper hand. "This is bullshit. I'm going to kill Rick Jones or, what the fuck is he calling himself now…?" Clint cast an angry glare at Phil.

"A-Bomb."

"...Seriously?"

"You really don't want to go there. And, honestly, he's above your weight class these days, Clint."

"Gimme some time to plan," Clint growled.

"Who are you now? Batman?" Natasha snorted. "Give it a rest, Barton."

Clint rounded on her. "You know what, Romanoff...?"

"Time out," Coulson said, cutting Clint off before he said something Natasha would surely make them both regret. "You two need to get a grip. Actually, I'm not sure why you are mad at each other."

"Sounds like we should be mad at Brock Rumlow," Clint muttered. He picked up the discarded tablet and watched a brief segment without the filter of his own memory.

It was obvious to him that the footage had undergone subtle editing, most of their conversation had been smudged and the events had been compressed. Natasha's description was accurate. The editing seemed particularly calculated to be degrading. His hand, which he recalled twining tenderly in her hair, did seemed to be controlling her momentum. He felt a sick flop of rage in his chest.

Clint dropped the tablet and headed for the door. He wadded a tissue he snatched in passing against his nose.

"You are going to go, what, defend my honor?"

"You're goddamned right I am," he shot back.

"Clint, don't be such a Neanderthal. Get your ass back here," Natasha called after him.

"Hey, stop it with the Neanderthals. They were a noble species."

"Oh, God, spare me your time-travel shit, ok? No one cares if you and Steve DID teach Paleolithic man to..."

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed to get these two out of HQ, out of the country altogether before things took a very, very bad turn. When he took the position of handler, he had no idea just how much _handling_ he was going to have to be doing. Stark had been a cakewalk after these two.

"I'm sending you both to do some recon for a few weeks… separately, and with personnel from local offices only."

"You are just going to let this stand? No way." Clint declared mulishly, "No way am I leaving until this is resolved."

"You will go, Agent, because I'm ordering you to. Neither of you are going to be involved in SHIELD's handling of this. It's not appropriate. Deputy Director Hill will deal with it. It will be handled, but not by you."

"How _is_ Hill about this?" he asked.

"Not as, ah, understanding, as I could wish. I'm working on it. She has her own opinions, but I believe she will resolve it."

Natasha and Clint exchanged a glance that told Coulson they understood; Hill disapproved of a woman like Natasha having sex on camera, irrespective of the fact that it was recorded without her consent and was a complete violation to have it shared around the office. She would of course be professional in her handling of the matter, but her personal opinion was less forgiving and more like the general attitude Natasha could expect from many here.

"This is bullshit, Phil," Clint ground out.

"I know," Phil said quietly. "I get it. I do, but I need you two gone for a bit. I am very sorry."

"It's not me you need to apologize to," Clint said, jaw tightening. "Tasha is right. That tape looks bad. It's obviously been edited to humiliate her. What are you going to do to them? Sensitivity training? You think these macho assholes are ever going to respect her again?"

"And what, precisely, are _you_ going to do about it?" she spat at Clint.

They both looked at Natasha, her anger flaring out as her partner spelled out her exact concern. She turned away, afraid the rage-tears she had been fighting might well up under this empathy. She liked it better when they had all been yelling.

"I need you in Budapest, Natasha. And Clint there is a matter in Africa that I need you to attend to. Neither of you are going to act on this. At all. Is that clear?" He held a pair of briefings out to them.

Clint stared hard at Phil as he took the briefing folder and strode down the hall, slowing until Natasha caught up with him. She walked a few feet ahead of him, stiff and keeping a wide berth between them.

Phil watched them go and hoped their professionalism would prevail; _two down_ , he thought. And, bickering aside, those two, as the wronged parties, were probably the easiest. He doubted Rogers would be nearly as forgiving. Thor was thankfully off-world. Phil wouldn't have enjoyed neither the Asgardian's blithe non-comprehension of the problem nor his blazing anger once he did.

He wondered if he could enlist Steve in figuring out a way to tell Bruce and Tony... Or—even better— a way to _not_ tell either of them. Neither Bruce's initial reaction nor Tony's false indifference and subsequent retaliation were things Phil wanted to deal with. Whatever Stark would come up with, no matter how much Rumlow or whoever deserved it, would cause more problems than it solved.

He was pretty sure he could keep Bruce from hulking out in the short term, but he could never risk Bruce being anywhere near Rumlow ever again.

Gamma monsters were scary.

* * *

 _A thanks to texts from superheroes where I swiped the "I have a lot of arrows that do that" line._


	5. Simulcast in High-Definition

_**Date:**_ _March 14th, 2014_

* * *

In the corridors outside the STRIKE offices, Natasha noticed Clint turning his head to the side and flinching the way he did when his hearing aids were bothering him. She touched his shoulder and asked if he was okay.

"Yeah. My comm is fading out and I'm getting lotsa feedback on that one side. _Something_ must've happened to it," he added, with a significant look and a raised brow.

The incident with the sonic arrow that had badly damaged his hearing a few months prior would have ended his SHIELD career had he not been granted an exemption due to his status as an Avenger. Most people didn't know about it and he prefered it that way. One of Clint's hearing aids doubled as his comm and Bluetooth; a lot of hardware packed into a tiny device that fit entirely in his ear canal, but the Stark-tech ones should have been able to take considerable abuse.

At her questioning look, he explained, "I'm not wearing the field-set, ok? They aren't as comfortable and I wasn't expecting to get punched in the head today."

"See, that's your problem," she teased, "You should _always_ be expecting to be punched in the head." Their earlier conflict seemed almost forgotten already and she felt the tension she'd been carrying ebb away.

His face screwed up and Natasha could hear the faint feedback from the malfunctioning device. He turned toward the bathroom. He didn't like to take them out and mess with them at SHIELD HQ. "I gotta fix this, but I don't want you to have to go in there by yourself." He indicated the double doors that held their desks and all of STRIKE's personnel, including Brock Rumlow.

She rolled her eyes and pointed toward the bathroom. "I'm fine. I was just in there and it's pretty dead. Most of the teams are out. It's better if we don't go in together anyway. I just need to get my stuff and I'll be out. You need anything from in there?"

"Just my jacket," he replied, "thanks."

"And you probably should wash the blood off your face. You look like shit," she said.

He held up his middle finger over his shoulder and turned to go attend to his tech.

* * *

Natasha squared her shoulders and checked her posture when she entered the office. With studied nonchalance, she threaded a path to her desk. The silent office seemed empty as she surveyed the low cubical walls. They had been quick to accuse Brock Rumlow, but she hadn't even seen him or the rest of his squad for a few days.

She glanced at Steve's closed office door. He had been dividing his time between DC and Avengers Tower and was currently helping with the relief effort in Madripoor. She knew he would find out about the video and that bothered her more than if the entire rest of the world saw it.

Which was, she supposed, still a possibility.

The tape had been circulating around SHIELD for several days; it was technically still classified but their celebrity status might make someone willing to leak it to the media for an obscene amount of money.

This was so fucking surreal.

When Jessica Drew had called her a few hours ago and asked her to meet her down in the SWORD wing of the Triskelion, Natasha heard the apprehension in her friend's voice when she asked if Clint was with her at his desk. When Natasha answered that he was working int the weapon's lab, Jess seemed relieved.

Jessica and Clint had dated back in the day and Natasha couldn't blame Jess; Clint had earned her animosity. They'd both grown up a lot and Jess grudgingly acknowledged Clint's merits, but Natasha knew that Jess always worried Clint would break Natasha's heart the way he'd broken hers. It had become almost a running joke between them, except Jess didn't think it was very funny. So, when she asked her to meet her in a private conference room and to leave her stingers and her other toys at her desk, Natasha smiled to herself. "What did he do now?"

"I…. It's better if we talk in person," Jess sounded tense and angry.

There was an extremely short list of people from whom a request to come without weapons wouldn't be an instant red flag. Jess was on it, and tended to forget that Natasha wasn't quite as reactionary as herself. And she hadn't asked her to come totally unarmed. In accordance with regulations, her Glock and her dual Walther PPKs were still securely holstered at her thigh and small of her back respectively.

"Where did this come from?" Natasha faltered as Jess showed her the video.

"I assumed he has a collection of these dirty movies and got careless with it. I can't believe he has a security clearance _at all._ "

"You got this from _Clint?_ " Natasha felt her lips go numb.

"Not _from_ him, but who else could have made a recording inside his quarters? I took this tablet from some recruit who said he got the vid from Brock Rumlow. I traced it a little and have a call into tech. I take it you didn't know Barton recorded this." Jess ran her hand through her black hair. "It's all over SHIELD now. I'm so sorry about this, Tasha."

"I'm going to kill him." Natasha affirmed.

"Wait a minute," Jess urged, "That's why I'm telling you before someone else does. I know it's a shock. You need to know. You need to sort it out…. I didn't know what else to do, but murder probably isn't the answer. Do you want me to go with you?"

Natasha looked at her friend; earnest Jess wanted to help but she would only make it worse. "Thank you for telling me, Jess. I'm going to…" she steadied her voice, "go _talk_ to him. I'll try not to shoot him. Can you call Coulson and see if he's back from Portland yet?"

Jess nodded, "Of course. Whatever you need."

As Natasha stalked out, Jess added, "maybe you should give me your Glock anyway. You would probably regret shooting him."

Natasha paused, ejected the magazine, dropped it into an inner pocket and reholstered the gun. She nodded to see if Jess was satisfied.

She now felt guilty for assuming that Clint had pulled a Rob Lowe and secretly recorded her and for not noticing the editing. The hurt in his eyes gave her a pang when she thought of it, but his smile as he sauntered away and his good-natured parting gesture assured her that this was something they would face together as partners.

As she approached her desk, she heard a low, breathy moan followed by some enthusiastic gasps and a few other sounds that she recognized with a cold shock.

 _Oh, god._

She stiffened as her own recorded voice echoed that sentiment in a considerably more gratified tone.

Rumlow lounged in her chair, feet up on her desk, staring at a tablet in his lap. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a screamer, Romanoff. You sound like a fucking cat in heat."

He leered at her, his eyes level with her breasts and then turned his attention back to the tablet. On the screen, she was pinching one of her own nipples and bracing herself against Clint's shoulder as he strove to unravel her. She cried out his name and started whispering a few obscene promises in Russian as his head moved relentlessly in her lap to keep up with her energetic writhing.

"Get up, Brock," she instructed, with an air of languid disinterest.

From the tablet, Clint's contented groan and entreaty of _come for me, baby_ , caused Rumlow to smirk up at her, mockery in his every feature.

"Out of my chair. Off my desk," she repeated in the same impassive tone.

"Wait, wait, it's just getting to the good part," he insisted and flicked the image on the screen, casting it up on the the large monitor bank opposite the desk.

Two large screens and a dozen smaller ones all filled with the same picture; a bird's eye view of her naked body, her head thrown back, a flush working its way down her chest and her thighs slicked with moisture. She wantonly arched and moaned when Clint rose up and took one of her breasts in his mouth, his hand still pumping between her legs. The camera descended and showed them in profile. She fisted her hand in his hair, encouraging him to ravish her breast, crying out when he did. She pulled him up further and kissed him hard, her fluids on his face.

As she reached for the large sheath knife on her hip, she realized she was woefully under-equipped. She had her PPKs, but she hadn't reloaded her Glock and her less-lethal weapons: her batons, her stingers and most of her other gear was in her bag; packed up when she'd left to meet Jess.

 _I love you, Clint_ , she whispered against his lips as he caressed her face with his free hand.

Rumlow hooted with laughter, momentarily distracted. Natasha drove the dagger through the tablet, it's broad blade penetrating to the other side between Rumlow's parted thighs. With a white flash, the image on all the screens winked out and the speakers fell silent.

He stood up, menacingly close and so fast, she lost her grip on the hilt. Rumlow tossed the sparking tablet away with the knife still embedded in it and toed her satchel out of reach with a cruel grin; he knew she was without most of her weapons too.

She felt her lips try to twitch into a flirty smile—fucking conditioning—an attempt to charm her way out of a fight was the absolute wrong tactic in this scenario. She suppressed it and glared up at him as he invaded her space. The heat of his body, the proximity of him, nearly made her recoil.

Natasha assumed an offensive posture without advancing nor retreating. "Back off, agent," she said.

Three other members of Rumlow's team emerged from the row of desks; Smyth, Richie and Braithwaite formed a perimeter around her and she endured their eyes crawling over her body.

"Don't start something you can't finish, little girl."

 _Seriously?_ Natasha generally traded on being underestimated when facing men like him in the field, but she'd become accustomed to a degree of deference and wary respect around SHIELD—especially within STRIKE where the men were familiar with her abilities.

"I dunno, Brock, in that vid, she looked like she could finish real good," Smyth drawled. "Maybe she'd like to finish off all of us. I mean, after that, I'm halfway there already." He gestured at his crotch with both hands.

"Hope she doesn't expect any muff diving," Braithwaite swaggered.

Richie volunteered, "Hell, I'll tear that carpet up."

Natasha felt like she'd walked into a bad movie. _What the hell was happening?_

She tried to reorient herself since this was clearly more than a macho-asshole power-play. The deserted office wavered a little in her vision as she summed the odds; properly armed and with the element of surprise, four opponents rarely presented much difficulty. But all four were skilled, STRIKE-trained, expecting action and much, much too close. Short of shooting them, her options were few but brutal action seemed necessary.

A fifth agent, Jack Rollins, appeared near the door and affixed a small device to the main office door: a digital lock. She glanced up and around; the security cameras - the LEDs were all dead.

Ok, this looked bad.


	6. HawkeyeNeverMisses-dot-mpeg

_**Date:**_ _March 14th-18th, 2014_

* * *

"Stand down, agents," Natasha ordered.

She felt the pressure of the four men's eyes on her back as they fanned out behind her. They surrounded her with their predatory grins and appraising eyes; a completely familiar yet oddly out-of-place sensation, a viscerally intimidating mixture of violence, lust and brutality. She continued to glare at the most immediate threat as Brock Rumlow loomed over her.

"Why should we listen to some commie dyke who fucked her way in here," said Braithwaite, the oldest of them.

"Bitch doesn't look like a dyke to me," Smyth said, "her titties are too nice."

"I'm sure there's a porno of her scissoring Hill somewhere," Rumlow added.

"Maybe the little cockhound wants a bone," Rollins jeered from his post by the door.

"Cunt," Rumlow spat.

And...she'd had enough.

She planted her boot into Rumlow's instep. As he instinctively lurched to protect his groin, she arced her foot up into the nerve cluster halfway up his inner thigh, nearly as painfully and just as effectively incapacitating him. As he went to his knees, she struck a blow to the bridge of his nose.

He was stunned but not as down nor as out as she would have expected. She drew the only weapons she had, the pair of PPKs, and pointed one directly at Rumlow's forehead and followed the sweep of her gaze with the other, pointing at Braithwaite, the nearest of the four men.

"Stand. Down. Agents," she ordered.

Showy moves were great when one was fighting a large group; it kept many of the attackers at bay, but a hard-and-fast-five-seconds-to-surrender was always the better play in a standoff like this.

The problem with escalating it to guns-drawn, however, was she really prepared to fire on fellow agents?

Well, of course she was. Not her prefered course of action, but desperate times, eh?

Rumlow rose smoothly in her peripheral vision. If he didn't back down, she was going to have to shoot him. They were too spread out and too well-trained. She couldn't hold all of them with the weapons at her disposal and not use lethal or near-lethal force. The Walthers were too small and light to effectively pistol whip anyone. And based on Rumlow's strange behavior and impervious reaction to her earlier blows, even her heavy Glock might not be enough.

He was clearly provoking her to attack him. _Why_? This had to be more than an insane case of dickful thinking. Why would five loyal SHIELD agents suddenly behave like this? It made no sense. She thought back to Clint's mind control; their eyes were clear but _perhaps...?_ Her first attempt at "cognitive recalibration" had hardly phased Rumlow. She would not want to kill innocent hostages. She'd never much cared for these men personally, but they were still fellow agents.

And shooting or killing all five of them, especially without surveillance footage to justify her, could be construed as an act of revenge. She would hope that her history and reputation would protect her, but she suddenly doubted. After all, hadn't her best friend worried that she might kill _Clint_ over the tape.

 _Goddammit._

She thumbed the hammers back and decided that she could probably double-tap Rumlow in the leg and shoulder and similarly take out three goons with non-lethal injuries before Rollins, standing by the door, could reach her. She could engage him hand to hand if she had to.

A familiar flash of red, white, and blue careered in an arc; it clanged off the three surrounding goon's skulls before returning to its point of origin, dropping them each to the floor. At least one of them was clearly unconscious, possibly with a broken jaw.

To her surprise, it was Clint who caught Steve's solid practice shield, standing in the open door to the darkened office, P30 drawn.

"S'up?" Clint said casually to Rumlow.

"Your little whore needed you to come save her apparently."

"Nat doesn't need my help to take you," Clint shrugged, tossing the shield and catching it in an easy one-hand grip, sauntering to the side to command a better position and to make it impossible for Rumlow to keep them both in his field of vision.

"How you doing, Nat?" he called as he gestured Rollins away from the door with the barrel of his gun covering the remaining, lurking aggressor.

"Just peachy," she answered and trained both her weapons on Rumlow.

"Thought your boys here might want to play disc golf but they don't seem to be too good at it," he said to Rumlow. Richie stirred and Clint bounced the shield off his sternum to remind him to stay down.

"You're lucky, bitch," Rumlow spat. "When it came right down to it, you are just like every other…"

Natasha cut him off by discharging a single round between his feet.

"How the fuck did you resist shooting him before?" Clint asked.

"Some cowboy came in and started playing frisbee before I got the chance."

"Probably no need to hold both guns on the man now. I think he'll behave," Clint suggested.

He'd noted, and was sure Tasha had too, the weight of the taser rod against Rumlow's thigh. He also noted that while a Rumlow wore his Sig-Sauer in a shoulder holster, he wore it on the opposite side of his body making it impossible to draw both the taser and the gun at the same time as each was placed for his right hand. How _did_ the single dextrous function?

Tasha holstered one of the PPKs, stepped back and relaxed her stance; totally natural, totally in position for their next play.

"I probably just saved your ass, Rumlow. Or at least your kneecaps—knees or rotator cuff?" Clint asked her.

She shrugged, "I couldn't make up my mind. The indecision might really have been what saved him."

"Looks like you got a few good licks in." Clint gestured at Rumlow's nostril, ringed with blood and swelling around his eyes.

"I got something she can lick," Rumlow grumbled, his voice growing stuffy and nasal.

Clint chuckled his ironic not-chuckle, and shook his head. "You know who wouldn't find that very funny? Cap. You ever notice how polite and respectful everyone is when he's around? Guy really just brings out the best in people, doesn't he? You wanna be good when Captain America is around. You really do."

"Take a look," Clint's voice got low and dangerous, "Cap ain't here, is he?"

Rumlow's eyes flicked around the room as if expecting Steve Rogers to appear. He immediately realized his error when the shield flashed and lunged at an angle to evade the projectile he expected to be coming his way, drawing his gun from his shoulder holster. The shield completed its path and it slammed into Rollins and dropped him, the weapon he'd just drawn spinning across the floor.

Natasha deftly extracted the taser rod from Rumlow's cargo pants as he passed, extended it and jammed the prongs into the large man's lower back. As he crumpled, she swung the rod up across the back of his skull and he collapsed forward on to the carpet.

She shoved her laptop and the taser into her bag. She kicked Rumlow's gun away, snagged Clint's jacket from his chair, retrieved her knife from the ruined tablet and stepped over one of the unconscious men to exit back through Steve's office.

"See, I knew you could take him," Clint said as she handed him his jacket. He inspected the shield for damage before dropping it back into the holder by the door as they made their way back to the corridor.

"You know, I really wasn't going to kill them."

"I know. But why risk messing up your hair with a fight?" He stroked at her curls; she swatted him away.

"I laid you out once today, Barton."

"Do you promise to do it again?" he asked as they got into the elevator and it began to ascend to the block of temporary agent quarters where they were both staying on the Triskelion's upper floors.

She smirked and nudged him with her shoulder. "That cap-ain't-here line was good."

"Thanks. I've used it before*. Works every damn time," he said and then added. "HR gets mad when you threaten your co-workers."

"And you wouldn't want them to think we were creating a hostile work environment…"

"Yeah. We might still get fired," he shrugged. "Good thing we've got something to fall back on. Think Stark offers benefits, 401k, PPO, that kind of thing?"

"How...," she started to ask, but the last few hours were catching up with her and she didn't manage to frame the question, but he answered anyway.

Pointing to his ear, "Once I got into the washroom, the unit stopped malfunctioning. I checked it over, but it was fine. When I came back to the office, the door was locked and it started screeching again."

"External tech dampener," she surmised.

"Yup," he agreed. "So I scanned in through Steve's office. Guess they forgot it has its own exterior door."

"That was an ambush. I don't know why. We need to report it. Something is up."

He nodded. "I called it in as soon as I noticed the tech dampener. A squad is on its way there, but Coulson told us to clear out. He still wants us out for a while."

Natasha sighed wearily, unusually pleased to let someone else deal with a problem. "I'm actually looking forward to Budapest. It sounds comparatively relaxing after today. I'm sorry I hit you."

"I probably deserved it for something else."

"No, you didn't. I shouldn't have assumed... I'm sorry I accused you."

He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. "Are you ok? Really?" he asked.

She nodded and leaned into him. "I was afraid I was going to have to shoot them. Hell, I was just afraid. They were… I haven't been so close to losing control of a situation like that in a long time. It looked bad."

"I heard some of what they said.…" he trailed off, indicating his glitching hearing aids. "I came in right before you drew on them. I should have gone in with you," he recriminated.

Natasha tried to imagine Clint's reaction to the second video and the full panoply of their insults. One Avenger on the brink of homicide per day, she decided. She'd tell him about the additional video later but she still hadn't had the chance to resolve it all in her own head. Rumlow's mocking face, the crass threats and Smyth pointing at his own semi-erection juxtaposed with her and Clint on the screen and their mingled ecstasy on the surround-sound speakers: the violation made her skin crawl.

She had a very clear recollection of the night in the film. It was the very first night she'd ever told Clint she loved him. It was the first time she'd ever said it to anyone and meant it. She swallowed the lump of rage welling in her throat and wondered if she would regret not shooting Rumlow in the fucking face one day.

She blotted at her eyes and answered, "It worked out better this way. You were able to call for back up and they revealed their play before they knew you were there." He nodded sullenly and she wondered if he too was already regretting not dispatching the five thugs.

"When do you leave?" he asked, flipping his briefing open and changing the subject.

She opened hers as well and then leaned over to look at his. "Looks like we go together as far as Frankfurt in about 10 hours."

"Guess we've got some time to kill." He made an 'after you' gesture as the elevator doors slid open. "Good thing you didn't get too tired punching out all those goons."

"I'm not the one who passes out one and done," she admonished.

"Is that a challenge?"

"You bet your ass it is."

* * *

Hawkeye took careful aim at Brock Rumlow when he stepped out of the neighborhood bar and began to swagger down the street. He seemed to be taking full advantage of the administrative leave Hill had ordered, enjoying a late night on the town on a Tuesday instead of preparing to be at work in a few hours. A man totally at ease, confident in his ability to walk wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Having the same curb weight and approximate mass as a small SUV had its perks. The purpling bruising ringing both eyes added to his general air of _don't-fuck-with-me_ but was probably why he was leaving the establishment alone.

Good. Easier that way.

The boomerang arrow ricocheted off his brown leather jacket and sailed back up to the rooftop. That would have put a normal person face-first on the sidewalk. Rumlow spun around, drawing his gun and aiming toward the return trajectory. "Barton, you cowardly bastard! Come out here and fight me like a man!"

Hawkeye smirked and quickly parkoured to a new vantage and loosed the bolo arrow, taking out the bully's gun and causing him to stumble back against the dumpster in the alley. The whir and click of the quiver and two putty arrows sailed out. One glued the bolo-wrapped hand to the side of the building, and the other welded the combat boot to the pavement.

Distance on these next two pairs were important: a chain between two arrowheads, fired simultaneously to serve as an on-the-fly handcuff. Clint had been testing them, but they weren't exactly field-ready; a miscalculation and the handcuff could become a limb-severing tourniquet.

Meh.

One of the cuff-arrows found their mark on his wrist and and the other on his upper thigh, holding him in place against the dumpster, but allowed his free leg to scrabble and flail on the concrete—Sweet.

Crouching in a clumsy, spread-eagle, Rumlow started bellowing Barton's name along with all manner of crude invectives. The redesigned Firefly made an extra pass before Hawkeye nocked the final arrow and calculated the perfect angle to bury the acid arrow in the metal wall of the dumpster directly beneath Rumlow's steroid-shrunken balls. The goal was to dissolve part of the dumpster without actually burning any parts off of Rumlow. Extra points if the shaft of the arrow passed through his jeans and/or made contact with his body.

Fffttttttt! Thunk! _Argh!_

As if there was ever any doubt about the extra points.

The collapsible bow went into the quiver and the quiver into the backpack just as the Firefly paired with the sat-phone and finally began streaming the live feed and the screen filled with Rumlow's face as he frantically squirmed away from the arrow's caustic payload. The acid ate through the dumpster and began to bore into the contents inside. A foul ooze comprised of acid, corroded metal and dumpster juice began to hiss onto the wet pavement and run towards the trapped man's shoes.

Hawkeye zipped up the black and purple moto jacket and descended the fire escape, pulling the full incident onto the sat-phone and preparing it for upload.

* * *

The text message from Kate Bishop came attached with the video file: _Here you go, Hawkeye._

Clint started the download and paged through the stills, responding on the secure Avenger's line: _Perfect, Hawkeye. Anyone see you?_

 _Don't think so. He didn't for sure. He was calling for your head even before the acid arrow. Bet it took four DC police to get him unstuck. I'm sure he's already filed a report against you with SHIELD._

 _Wonder how that's going to work. I've been in eastern Europe for three days and I'm somewhere over the Mediterranean right now. In fact, I had a little chat with Hill at the con about 10 minutes ago._

 _Did Hill say why those guys aren't in jail? Or the brig or whatever._

Clint gritted his teeth at the question; he'd like to know why as well and hoped the terse answer would encourage Kate to drop the subject. _No._

She took the hint and volunteered _: I think the acid might've melted one of his boots a little. Maybe more than just his boot... The screaming sounded decidedly less angry at street level. Sounded more...screamy._

 _Did you get the extra points?_

 _Hells yeah I did. He squealed. There was literal squealing:_ Clint imagined he could hear the world-weary vocal fry in Bishop's last two words.

 _Thanks, Katie-Kate. It's a good start. It'll do 'til I get back._

 _Loved how you two practically stamped your signature on the big jerk's face._

Clint frowned at the screen for a minute before simply sending back: _?_

 _Blackeye, heh. Rumlow had a pair of black eyes. That's what we call you guys behind your back. You know, like Brangelina or Benifer..._

 _Shouldn't it be Blackhawk?_

 _Yeah, that flows better, I guess. I like Clintasha too._

Clint watched the video of Kate's clever ambush two more times. He was about to settle down for some much needed kip when she pinged him again.

 _Hey, Clint, is Natasha ok, like really?_

 _Nat? Yeah, she's fine. It would take more that an asshat like Rumlow to get to her._

* * *

 _* this line is a shameless steal from Matt Fraction's Hawkeye #1. I was flipping through back issues to get a look at the trick arrows and some Kate-dialogue and I saw that and it was too good not to use._


	7. Control-Alt-Delete

_**Date:**_ _March 22nd, 2014_

* * *

"We got her, Bruce."

"How is she?"

"Out cold. But in better shape than Rogers. Medics are with him now."

"What...?"

"She hurt him pretty bad. Brutal, really. I cut the power to her weapons, but not fast enough."

"What happened, Tony?"

"It looks like she lapsed back to before she defected."

"Coulson said it looked like they were experimenting on her. What did they do? Expose her to a nerve agent?"

"Dunno. It's like they hit control-alt-delete and rebooted her. She thought she was Red Room again."

"Was that intentional or a side effect? What were they trying to do to her?"

"Don't know. She was being held by some low-level local thugs—they're all dead so they don't know who was holding the leash."

"Did she kill them?"

"No, they sent in the STRIKE team, which for reasons unclear, included Rumlow."

"Son of a..."

"Right. STRIKE found her, barely conscious. After that, they put her on a SHIELD transport train. Some problem with no-fly-zones. She attacked Rumlow and one or more of his agents and she escaped. Reports differ and they haven't released the complete footage yet."

"How long before you start hacking for it?"

"Already in progress, but I've had a busy day."

"What happened when you found her?"

"She and Rogers locked horns inside Milano Centrale Station. He chased her inside and was down before I got in. All that glass and all those people, there was no way for me to get through. I don't think he really expected her to use such force."

"Has anyone gotten in touch with Barton yet?"

"Wakanda is a blackout zone. He's not due to check in for a few more hours, but Hill promised to send someone if he misses check in."

"He needs to get back to the tower."

"It's probably a good thing he wasn't here to go after her."

"He took her down once before, Tony."

"Didn't care if he brought her back alive that time—She wasn't pulling any punches today, but he would have. And not to brag, she wasn't armed with Stark-tech last time. After what she did to Rogers, she'd have taken Clint apart. I can't believe Rumlow is still alive, but maybe she was in a hurry."

"Not that I care, but how is Rumlow?"

"Alive, stable even."

"That's... not what I was hoping for."

"It's for the best. She didn't kill anyone, actually. Drugged or not, flipping back to her Russkie days after that data leak... It can't be good for her standing at SHIELD."

"What are they going to do with her?"

"One of the escape-proof cells is being prepped."

"They are going to lock her in a cell? Is that Fury's solution?"

"Yes, but it's an improvement to the first plan. At first, they were ordering she be strapped down as well. Bruce, she almost took out _Captain America_ , tried to gut him like a fish. She's not Natasha right now. She's a danger to others _and_ to herself. Until we know what the drug did and how to reverse it, it's our only option."

"And what will they do once they have her? I heard about what happened at SHIELD with Rumlow; and they did nothing to them! We should have her here. I know you have a redundancy cell somewhere. Could we keep her here? Anything that holds the other guy, should hold her. "

"Ok, big guy. I think I can arrange something."

"Once she's here, what would they do about?"

"SHIELD won't like it."

"Which is why you'll do it."

"Stay calm. I'll see what I can do."

" _Don't_ tell me to stay calm. "

"Roger that…. On a _less_ angry note, how's your friend?"

"Jones? He's adjusting really well. Is kind of excited about it actually - hasn't thought it all through yet, maybe. It's really fascinating what the gamma did to him, the transformation is permanent, constant and likely to keep improving. We're seeing potential for intangibility, phase shifting and some very strange transformations."

"So, he's big and blue forever and always now?"

"Maybe. But we haven't detected any cognitive loss. So, um, it could be worse. His personality seems unaffected. He's still Rick, at least. He wanted to talk to Natasha to apologize for the leak... Guess that's not happening."

"Not in the short term...we'll get her back, buddy. I don't know what we'll do with Barton if we don't."

* * *

"Mr. Secretary, the reboot worked perfectly."

"You had to wipe her completely? She has no memories of her life once she left the… what did you call it, the Red Room?"

"Yes. We never truly needed her services within SHIELD, obviously, but the information she can provide within the Avengers would be invaluable. We still need to implant the memories we created for her. It would have been preferable to have more time with her. Your STRIKE team broke her out far too soon."

"I did not order that, but it is just as well. We have a timetable to keep, General. Project Insight is go and we need to have an agent inside the Avengers. Romanoff was perfectly placed. All you had to do is reactivate her programming."

"Pierce, we have never had a sleeper agent out in the cold for this long."

"Was she out in the cold or did she truly defect? Do you even know?"

"That is the beauty of the defection protocol. Not even the defector knows. She believed that she _had defected;_ that she _chose_ to leave. As if we would have allowed her to live after such a betrayal. She was living so completely as one of them, she never knew that we could recall her at any moment."

"You couldn't, apparently."

"Yes, well, that was unfortunate."

"Unfortunate? You assured me that she could be turned at anytime. I do not have the level of confidence in your work after this. You may have to bring your other soldier from the other cold storage to convince me."

"We will deploy that asset when the time is right. Until then, you must allow us to implant the new memories into Natalia or she will be of no value to us within the Avengers."

"You know how important this is, General. The Avengers must not be able to interfere with Project Insight. I don't expect them to be standing after the launch, but they must be controlled until we get those carriers in the air. Have you finished creating the new memories for her?"

"Yes, they are incomplete, but that is not a bad thing. The Avengers will be eager to help her 'remember' things and that will help us get fresh information. Also, if they believe she is recuperating, they may assign her tasks that will allow us even greater access to their data. As soon as she is in SHIELD custody, we must implant those new memories."

"I'm awaiting confirmation of her arrival now."

"Is it true that she attacked the STRIKE force after they rescued her?"

"Yes. That was another terrible command decision; to send those particular men after her. Things are really going to hell. They were the same ones who tried to provoke her to activate her fail-safe. They used all the phrases you provided."

" _You attempted to activate the Valkyrie-contingency_? Are you mad? Were your men informed? They could all have been killed."

"All are loyal to Hydra. They knew the risks. Commander Rumlow even volunteered. He was very confident that the contingency would not work. And, turns out, he was right. And, ah, let's not overestimate your gal's skill, shall we?"

"You have never seen the Widow truly in action."

"Well, I guess it's a good thing our boy was right then. Might've made a mess in the offices. It was a good thing Jessica Drew disarmed her. She had only two small firearms; not much stopping power, but she still would have hurt our boys badly even if they were able to subdue her."

"Was this Drew woman in on it? Is she one of ours? I have not heard of her."

"No. Far from it, actually. She would be another one I would want out of the way before it begins. I believe she will be quite high on Project Insight's lists. It was all a matter of chance, but very fortunate for our men; they may not have activated her protocol but they were objectively still pretty threatening. They probably don't realize it but had Agent Barton not interrupted, things might have gone very differently and we might be having a very different conversation. You need to see the video."

"There is video? I specifically ordered that no Hydra agents were to ever be recorded acting in anyway counter to SHIELD until…"

"Take it easy, General. All the networked cameras were disabled… Agent Braithwaite, however, is of the old school. I have analog footage that exists nowhere else. I have it just in case."

"How was it your men were not incarcerated for an attempted assault? You are a powerful man, Secretary, but…"

"Relax, general, this is America, the land of due process. I insisted on a full investigation with paid administrative leave. There was no proof. Romanoff never filed a report so it's like it never happened. It's all been swept under the rug and those men are already back on duty. Hydra rules here."

"Pierce, you play a dangerous game!"

"You wanted me to separate Agents Barton and Romanoff. Commander Rumlow took some, shall we say, unconventional measures to insure she was sent on this particular mission alone. Those same measures may also have served to damage her credibility with her American comrades."

"And how did he achieve that? I thought that Nick Fury personally oversaw those agents."

"He doe, but Fury has been out attending to some sensitive matters and has left Deputy Director Hill to oversee day-to-day operations. We know that Fury gives those two agent's special treatment. Hill, on the other hand, follows the rules.."

"I don't see how this pertains to…"

"SHIELD has a strict policy of non-fraternization between partnered agents. It seems that there was some compromising video of Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff engaged in sexual activity while off-duty. Fury tolerates it, but when Rumlow circulated the video within SHIELD, Maria Hill had no choice but to at least create the appearance of enforcing regulations by separating them until Fury returned. Jasper Sitwell made sure that both were assigned to locations we chose. Romanoff to you and Barton to Wakanda."

"As soon as you have her confined, we can complete the memory implantation. How will you deal with the fact that she attacked…."

"Excuse me, General… I'm getting a priority call….. "

"Pierce, I don't have time…."

"General, there's….. another problem. She's not in SHIELD custody."

"Where is she?"

"The Avengers have her."

"That complicates things."

"Indeed. We will need to get to her to implant those memories. But if she is housed at their tower now, she should at least be well placed once you managed to do your job and reindoctrinate her."

"This Barton, what about him? When we have our Natalia back, if he is her lover, do we have a chance of bringing him over? He could be quite useful."

"No, I don't think so. Not long term. She might convince him to follow her at first but we do not believe he will come over to our side. And if they have been together as long as reports suggest, he will notice the change in her. We may have to eliminate him."

"She may do that for you. If they attempt to confine her and we are not able to implant the new memories, eventually the Black Widow programming will take over. She'll seduce one to escape and then cut his throat. "

"Well, one Avenger dead. Another Avenger—a murderer. That could work to destabilize them at least."

"Hail Hydra, Secretary Pierce."

"Hail Hydra."


	8. Strangers on a Train

**Chapter 8: Strangers on a Train**

 _ **Date:**_ _March 20th, 2014_

At first, Natalia couldn't distinguish the click and surge of the train from the pounding in her head. She imagined she could still feel the echoes of electricity crawling around inside her muscles. She fought the urge to rub it away and remained unmoving; pretending to be unconscious while she assessed her surroundings. She ached with the effort of stillness and commanded her breathing to follow a slow cadence.

 _Take stock,_ she thought, _Review the last play:_

The pursuit continued; the shadow who'd dogged her for days; the eyes on her back through five cities; the paranoia of a life on the run personified. The wound she'd taken last week when her safe house was compromised by local police had become infected and the antibiotics she'd procured weren't enough. Her whole leg ached and a fever thrummed in her head.

She stopped running and took a good long look at the phantom whose gaze was an itch between her shoulders. She fired three rounds at him. Faster than most men could have reacted to her movement, he dodged and returned fire.

He shot four arrows at her.

 _Arrows. What the hell…?_

The silent projectiles embedded themselves in the brick. She never even saw him draw them them, but she lost precious seconds staring at the incongruous sight of the shafts quivering with the impact.

She ran, stumbling every few steps and eventually found cover on top of an abandoned industrial complex, the burning in her thigh slowing her, the fever sapping her strength. He followed her; his tac-gear visible under the civilian clothes; the dusky purple jacket unexpectedly good camouflage in this light.

The roof offered many opportunities for cover — she found a vantage and took aim…

And the gun jerked out of her hand and struck her in the cheek, narrowingly missing her eye.

Stunned and disoriented, she knew she'd lost her chance. He'd actually lodged an arrow—an arrow for Christ's sake—in the barrel of her gun. She climbed to her feet and faced the man who would kill her. Her injured leg quivered beneath her as the adrenaline-induced stamina gave out. It was probably all over. She had known she would die like this, but had hoped it wouldn't be so soon.

He was barely twenty feet from her; sandy hair, sunglasses and dark clothes, a tac-holster on his thigh and large bow and fucking arrow leveled at her. Older than she was, but still young; she tried to guess his allegiance and country of origin, but his weapon completely baffled her.

"I've been sent to kill you. But I don't want to..."

 _Of course. An American,_ she thought, his accent and his bearing shouted it. _Here it comes._ This had happened a few times before; an assassin-turned-admirer. The easiest kind of kill; the one that had earned her the codename, leaving them tangled in the sheets, throats slashed. She found her gaze tracing a line across his Adam's apple. It was more a game for mercs like herself, but this one was clearly formal military of some kind. But the rank and file had needs too, just like the freelancers.

She could seduce this man and might even take some pleasure from him before she let his blood run over her hands. She wondered what he would taste like and what those powerful arms would feel like, flexing beneath her. He might even be a good lay; a place to work out some of the stress of the past few days before she took him out. It had been too long since she'd fucked a man she found anything less than repulsive and this one was actually sexy.

"You think I'm too be-utiful to kill," she let her mother-tongue leak into her voice. All those years of the Cold War and yet American men still got hot when they heard a Russian accent. Or maybe that was the reason. She shifted, presenting her body like merchandise, running her hand over her chest. "You don't vant to put an arrow between my breasts… you vant to use somet'ing else." The line was weak, but the fatigue was quickly draining her resources.

"There _is_ a shortage of perfect breasts in this world and it _would_ be a shame to damage yours." He smirked a little at his own joke and she knew he was making a reference but she couldn't place it. These people and their pop culture. "But that's not what I was going to say. And I'd put an arrow through your eye or your forehead anyway. You'd still manage to shoot me if I put one or even two in your chest; you are too good for anything less than an instant kill. Actually, that's what I want to talk to you about."

American bluntness; ruthlessly practical yet oddly idealistic. He'd be easy to kill later, once he lowered that fucking bow. She studied the tension in his body; the way his chest moved as he breathed, muscles compensating to keep his weapon perfectly still. She wondered what the draw weight was on the bow; it was certainly at least twice the standard and yet he was holding it effortlessly. Could she wait him out? How long could stand there against the relentless resistance of that bow? He wasn't even sweating yet.

"I've been tracking you for a while now. You are the best I've ever seen. But you are alone and you are tired of the regrets."

 _Regrets? What could he possibly know about regrets?_

"I saw you hit Drakov three days ago. You didn't mean to shoot that little girl. The bullet went straight through him and into her. You threw up in the alley afterward. I could have killed you then. Dropped you right there in the alley with tears on your face, blood on your hands and puke on your shoes."

She wrinkled her nose. "Vhy didn't you?" She suddenly wished he had, that cold stab of emotion the first she'd felt about her impending death.

"You want to be better than what they made you. You didn't have a choice to be anything else. No one asked you if you wanted to be an assassin, did they?"

She shook her head. How dare he offer her _empathy_. How dare he speak of the little girl in the red dress with the blood streaking her hair like crimson ribbons. She swallowed hard, feeling renewed determination to best him.

"SHIELD, Interpol, MI6, CIA... They all know who you are and they _will_ stop you. If not me, someone else. I'm good, maybe the best at what I do; but there are others, with other methods. Once they put the word out, you're done. No one will hire you; you'll bring too much heat. The Black Widow is over."

She raised her eyes to him, a calculated tell. _Something is over, comrade, but are you sure it is me?_

A smile skated across his face and actually reached his eyes. Were they blue? Green? Grey? She couldn't tell behind the sunglasses. "Sure, dye your hair, change your face, score your fingertips, but it won't matter. If SHIELD cares enough to send me, they won't stop until you're history, Nat."

She blinked.

"Sure, I know your real name; Natalia Alianova Romanoff. I know more about you that you do, probably. I can offer you something better than an arrow in your brain. I can offer you a purpose and a chance to use your skills to fix this fucked-up world. You aren't even old enough to drink in America and the world would be a better place without you in it. I can make that happen. Or I can take you somewhere and you can start to make it better. To protect little girls rather than catching them in the crossfire. You ain't going to get much farther on that leg anyway." He glanced at her thigh where the glistening stain was beginning to show on her dark pants.

"Do you always talk this much?"

"No."

"How do you know I won't kill you as soon as I say yes?"

"You thinkin' about saying yes?"

She closed her eyes. He was right and she was tired. And just like that, the fire went out. Her leg hurt and she was so goddamn tired, and this man offered her refuge and rest.

And she could always kill him later if he was lying to her. She had learned to assume that most of what men said to her were lies; even this earnest soldier with his archaic weapon and deadly accuracy. The trick was to listen and to use the lie to interpret the motive.

"Are you authorized to do this?" she asked dubiously.

"No," he confessed. _Well, what could she do about that?_

"Promise me one thing."

"Alright," he agreed, although she saw a flash of discomfort.

"If they want to lock me up, that you'll do what they sent you here to do.

"S'not like SHIELD keeps me around for my charm."

Not exactly assent but it would do. She nodded grimly. "You are with SHIELD, then. What is your name?"

"Clint. Uh, they call me Hawkeye; it's a joke. You see, I'm from Iowa and…" He managed a self-deprecating shrug, the bow still drawn and the arrow unmoving.

"I have heard of you, Hawkeye. OK. I will come with you." As soon as she said the words, she wondered if she meant them, or if she would kill him the first chance she got.

He exhaled and the tension around his eyes eased and he smiled, a wide, perfect-tooth American smile. But still, his aim never wavered.

His eyes were blue, she decided, not sure why it felt like an important detail.

"Now what?" She looked around a little awkwardly while he held her in his sights.

"You get all that?" He was speaking louder and she realized after a beat he was talking on a commlink. "Yeah, I know...It's on me... This is the right call, Phil. You know it is…. No, that's not the reason… Yeah, well, we'll see…. uh-huh."

He flicked his gaze to her apologetically. This was absurd. What was she doing? She leaned back against the wall and impatiently folded her arms. "Ok… I know. I take full responsibility. Just send evac. Yeah? Uh-huh... Ok...Yeah...Whatever... Blow me, Coulson." He said that last bit with cheerful panache. _Americans, Christ._

"Ok, you ready?"

She licked her lips and prepared to answer, realizing that she actually did mean it. She was so tired but she didn't want to die and she didn't want to be defined by her body count. "Yes," she agreed.

He moved only one finger on his bow hand and the blue flash of a taser sparked toward her in slow-motion, arcing and hissing.

Her whole body ached as she lay there on the narrow cot on the train, listening and waiting. Her injured leg felt better, at least. She must have received medical attention while she was unconscious. Her head hurt but she didn't burn with fever.

Her last memory hung cohesively in her mind, separate from the confused throng of her dreams. It was odd to dream such vivid dreams, odder still for so many of them to be pleasant, pleasurable even. Her experiences with dreams had been filled with the Red Room's subliminal programming, awash in rote repetition and exercises in desensitization.

These were a banquet of images and sensations, so realistic they felt more authentic than the recollection of a few hours ago. She dreamed of autonomy and the option to choose her missions. A leader with whose one eye saw all. A flash of red and gold, sparking with blue light. A shy smile from a gentle soul. A calm, competent voice talking her through danger. The respect and trust of someone she truly esteemed. A boisterous comrade, a fellow warrior. An earnest and faithful friend.

And she dreamed of Clint the archer with his blunt features and sharp, expressive eyes; his easy smile and the hard lines of his body, his husky voice and smooth persuasion. She had dreamt of kissing him simply because she wanted to and of his breath on the back of her neck as they slept on an opulent mattress with his strong arms around her. She could exactly recall the sensation of her back pressed against his chest, the outline of his cock pressed against her ass, her legs entwined with his.

A fantasy of friends and freedom; adventure and achievement; romance and respect, sex and security, intimacy and ideals. Madness! Or, perhaps, weakness, maybe from the drugs they'd given her for her leg. She was marble and iron; not a plaintive schoolgirl who desired such decadent indulgences. She decided that this required a swift and decisive response if she were ever to return to the Red Room, to be excused from this lapse. Her fever had made her delirious and that son of a bitch had tazed her. She ought to kill him just for that, not just for the intimate dreams their brief encounter had induced.

She heard footsteps; heavy boots and long strides. Natalia expected Clint and whomever he'd been talking to on the comm. She lowered her lashes and feigned unconsciousness, waiting to see what she might hear before she exacted her revenge.

* * *

Rumlow and Rollins looked down at her.

"Still out?" Rumlow said, prodding her shoulder with one of his taser rods. At her total lack of response, he poked the side of her breast, hard, and smirked as her prone form rolled with the pressure.

"Do we know how much she knows now?" Rollins asked. "Did they do all they needed to? Have you seen them do that mind-wipe shit to the other asset? It's fucked-up, man."

Rumlow shrugged.

"So, we don't know if she's Hydra?"

Rumlow glared at him. "What the hell, Rollins?"

"Everyone here is loyal. The next phase begins in a few months, there is no time," he seemed unrepentant and Rumlow decided he was right. Hiding was not his style, even if he understood the necessity.

"What about Barton and the other Avengers?"

"Leave Barton to me," Rumlow said, "the others, well, that's the big boss's problem. But I think that sneaky bastard might just have an accident."

"If she doesn't take care of him first," Rollins offered.

The other man smirked with satisfaction. "Yeah, I s'pose that's likely. Hope there's video if that too."

"She will be a great asset."

"Yeah, I'm a big fan of her assets," Rumlow agreed, nudging her chest again with his club.

Natalia decided she'd heard enough and had had enough poking. She stirred and stretched and blinked up at the two men. They clearly wore SHIELD uniforms but claimed that everyone on this train was Hydra. She had heard of Hydra but as a history lesson: the mad science division of the Nazis gone for more than half a century. Were they emulators? Was this a test? Her head hurt and she needed to get out of here; these men believed her to be in their power and that was never a good dynamic.

"Clint?" she demanded, shifting their focus so they didn't wonder if she'd overheard anything. She struggled for the other name, "Coulson?"

"Coulson stayed behind to oversee cleanup," the one with the narrow face answered.

"And your Clint ain't here," the bigger one drawled. She read the contempt in his voice and sat up slowly; she'd already figured out her play.

She shrugged with indifference and cast her eyes slowly up the tall man's body, appreciation in the quirk of her mouth. She licked her lips. "Not here? Hmmm... Good." She glanced past him, let her eyes skip over his subordinate and to the package of water bottles in the corner.

Rumlow handed her a bottle of water and she touched his fingers as she took it. She read their names over their SHIELD insignias, Rumlow and Rollins, and tried to reconcile what she'd heard them say about Hydra and decided to run with her theory. She opened the bottle and raised it toward them in a salute. "Hail, Hydra, huh, boys?" she said as she calmly took a drink.

They exchanged glances. Okay, she'd obviously guessed right. It was far too easy sometimes. She still didn't quite know what the hell was going on, but at least they seemed to think she did.

"You go," the big man ordered, "I think _Agent_ Romanoff and I need a few moments."

"Yes, Commander." Rollins, with all the slimy sycophancy she expected, leered at them and slid the metal door shut as he left.

"Only a few moments?" She said coyly, again playing up her accent and receiving the gratification of seeing him respond far more than "Clint" had with his false promises of a better world. She didn't understand how she wound up on a train with Hydra agents dressed as SHIELD or how the archer figured into it, but she felt deeply uneasy and wanted to get off the train as quickly as possible.

Rumlow sat next to her on the cot, with all the assurance of a man used to getting his way. _Well, isn't this cozy?_

"Hey, Romanoff, will you say something for me?"

"Alright, Commander. Vat is it you vant?" She let her eyes linger on his lower lip and then the front of his cargo pants and cringed inwardly as he responded to her heavy-handed seduction.

"Say, 'We must get moose and squirrel.'" He smirked like it was the cleverest thing he'd ever said.

She repeated the line with her sultriest tones and thickest accent, glancing up at him conspiratorially.

 _God, she was going to enjoy taking this guy out._


	9. Timeline

The whole story takes place between _Avengers_ and _Captain America: Winter Soldier._ For the sake of ease, let's use the release dates of the movies to create our timeline. _Avengers_ \- May 4, 2012  & _Captain America: Winter Soldier -_ April 4, 2014. (for those of you that have been reading since the first chapter... um, yeah, I changed some stuff. Originally, chapters 1-3 were intended to be pre-Avengers (probably sometime in 2010, but I realized that Clint & Natasha talked about Cap in chapters 2 & 3\. So, yeah. I had to pull the timeline in a bit.)

I'll update the earlier chapters with dates as well, but I wanted to put this out here because I think I lost some people on this last chapter. I'll probably delete this chapter at some point, so you might want to leave reviews on earlier chapters. Sorry for the confusion.

 _-Lio_

* * *

1\. Firefly 4 Back Online : September 6th, 2012

2\. RomanoffSucksOffBarton-dot-mpeg: September 4th, 2012

3\. BartonGoesDownOnRomanoff-dot-mpeg: September 6th, 2012 (yes, chapter 1 & 3 happen at the same time - "It's a live feed")

4\. Welcome To Level Four: March 14th, 2014

5\. Simulcast in High-Definition: March 14th, 2014

6\. HawkeyeNeverMisses-dot-mpeg: March 14th-18th, 2014

7\. Control-Alt-Delete: March 22nd, 2014

8\. Strangers on a Train: March 20th, 2014 (Natasha's memory of meeting Clint _actually_ took place in late 2004)

 _Again, please leave reviews on Chapter 8 because I'm probably going to delete this timeline chapter. Sorry for the confusion!_

 _Thanks for sticking with me on this!_


	10. Tea Time

_**Date:**_ March 25th, 2014

* * *

Jessica Drew knocked on the door frame as she entered the Avenger's basement containment suite. Dr. Banner's head jerked up from the documents he studied. "Come on in," he said amiably.

Jess set the three cardboard cups of tea down by the door and put a fourth container in the small refrigerator. The large room with the heavily reinforced paneling was as clinical as she had expected. The containment portion of the room had redundant security measures but the energy beams and repulsor panels were off; they were relying on the thick smooth walls and ceiling and the transparent window facing the doctor. At least the cell was furnished.

Jess studied her friend's back as she lay unmoving on the narrow bed in the corner of the cell. "Is she drugged?"

"No," Banner answered. "She's not even asleep. She does that when she's tired of me talking to her. Thanks," he nodded at the tea she handed him.

"Have you been here with her the whole time?" she asked. "That's so kind. I couldn't get clearance to come any sooner."

Banner shook his head. "Sorry about that. Tony doesn't trust SHIELD; thinks they are going to try to take her into custody. I agree with him, actually, but I know you are just here as her friend." Jess nodded and he continued by addressing her first question. "I've been here a lot, but not all the time. I've been trying to figure out what they did to her and I run tests here when I can. I just didn't want her to be alone."

"I got a call from Clint last night. He can't get here and he's freaking out. He's been grounded in Africa by that storm for almost two days. He's been badgering Mr. Stark to send some other transport since all of SHIELD is tied down. He should be here soon, but I'm not sure when."

"Yeah, he's been called me for updates. I don't know what to tell him. He wanted to talk to her but..."

"He wouldn't be much use over the phone," Jess interjected.

"It's not just that. She still thinks we are all lying to her; she thinks it's about 10 years ago and that this is some elaborate ruse. She even keeps accusing us all of being Hydra operatives; there hasn't been Hydra since 1945. I don't know what's misinformation and what's the result of whatever drug they gave her. I can't tell even if _she_ knows. They really messed her up."

"Yeah, I heard she went ape-shit when…" she covered her mouth self-consciously. "Oops, sorry."

Dr. Banner's diffident smile flashed before he hid it behind the cup. "It's fine," he said.

"I heard that she was really terrified when she saw Iron Man. That it was like she didn't know what he was or who Cap was or anything."

He nodded. "That's what Tony said. I think he might have used the term 'ape-shit' too."

Jess looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said again. She'd met Dr. Banner a few times at parties as himself and seen him in action as the Hulk and she wasn't sure if she was more afraid of the monster or of discomfiting the reserved Bruce Banner.

"You don't have to apologize. I've heard far worse," he assured her.

"Oh, yeah, if you've spent all this time with Natasha, I guess you'd be used to the cursing."

His smile grew sad. "I've always found Natasha's swearing kind of charming. I'm not quite sure how she does it… Natalia on the other hand…." At her puzzled look, he added, "Maybe it's just a habit for me, to think of it as a dual personality… but that is NOT my friend Natasha in there. She doesn't even acknowledge the name."

Jess sipped her tea and looked at Natalia's back as she lay in the minimally furnished cell. "Can she hear us?"

"No, I've got the audio switched off. I can turn it back on, if you want to try to talk to her."

"I do, but..." Jess bit her lip and sat down next to the soft-spoken doctor. "What's she like?"

"Suspicious. Angry. Afraid. She's someone else. If her memory really is reset to ten years ago, she's, what, 20 years old? I hate that she's locked up, but I don't know what else to do." They both knew that this cell was designed to hold the Hulk. Jessica wondered how weird it must be for Banner to be sitting here on the other side of the barrier that was built for him.

"I bet she hates it, too. You think Clint can help?"

"I don't know." The doctor took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "She's not too happy with him. She seems to remember him offering her a place at SHIELD and then knocking her out. She has no memory of being at SHIELD or with the Avengers. She woke up on the train with Rumlow and Rollins. I don't know what happened, but given that data leak and the state they found Rumlow in, I doubt it was pleasant. Tony tried to get the video, but there isn't any."

"I haven't been able to access it either," Jessica confided. "SWORD can usually access any thing in SHIELD's files, but I can't find it either and Rollins claims to have a concussion. They have Rumlow in a medically induced coma until they can work on him. They are still working on Captain Rogers, but he is doing well. They are working with that scientist from Korea."

"Yeah, Dr. Helen Cho. I was looking at some of her work," Dr. Banner gestured to the tablet on the desk. "Exciting stuff. Her regeneration technology takes days for now, but she is already working on accelerating it."

"Could they use that to heal Natasha's brain?" Jess asked, almost like she expected to be rebuked.

The doctor considered it, but shook his head. "I don't think so. But, I don't even know what they did to her."

Natasha stirred on the cot in her cell. "If you are going to be here for a bit, I'm going to go down and run a few new tests," Banner supplied. "I'll turn on the audio. Just go up and talk to her. Tell her who you are. Tell her about things you did together. Maybe it will remind her of something." He flicked a switch on the console and gathered up his work.

Jess approached the barrier and the woman on the bed sat up. "Hi, Natasha. Um, I mean, Natalia. I'm Jess... Jessica Drew. We're friends." Natalia leveled a cold glare at her. "I brought you some tea." She put the cup in an airlock-like chamber and pushed a button. "I also brought you some caramel gelato. It's your favorite. Yeah, I know. It's weird that I'm telling you that it's your favorite, but it was… is. Fuck, I'm doing this wrong." She leaned her forehead against the glass and said wistfully. "It's from that place you like. You were the one that introduced me to it."

"Are we lovers?" Natalia inquired suddenly.

Thrown, Jess stammered, "What? No. I…. we are friends. But not like that."

"I don't have friends," Natalia said, primly.

"You do. Or Natasha does, if you really aren't her. Bruce is her friend. He's been here all this time working to figure out how to bring her back. And Cap, Steve, Captain America, whatever. He's your friend. Her friend…. I don't know. You hurt him real bad, but he's going to be ok. Wants to come see you tomorrow..."

"I hurt the other one, too," she said smugly.

"Brock Rumlow? Yeah, no one gives a shit about him." Jess dismissed and glanced up to see if her friend might be looking out, but met only the emotionless expression of the Black Widow. She sighed. "Well, he's still a colleague, I guess. Even if I'm glad you kicked his ass. He'll be ok, too. Eventually."

Natalia's eyes narrowed suspiciously. She got up, took the cup from the air lock and sipped the tea. "Thank you," she said without a trace of gratitude in her voice. "You can go now."

Jess turned sadly to leave, wondering if she should stay and demand the cold woman listen as Jess enumerated all the people who cared about Natasha and worried for her. Stark had barred most of the other SHIELD personnel while they fought over who had the right to hold her. Normally, Jess would have sided with SHIELD, but there was something wrong and she couldn't quite place it. Covering her face, she decided she'd wait just out in the hall until Dr. Banner came back.

"Wait."

Jess turned back.

"Before you go. The gelato."

* * *

Clint jumped out of the helicopter before it landed. Tired and wired, he was grateful that no one but Jarvis greeted him. He took the elevator directly to the containment level, feeling both annoyed and oddly smug that they thought they needed to put her in the room they had designed to hold the Hulk. She would certainly be safe there and no one would get to her without their permission.

Jessica Drew stood outside the entrance to the containment suite, leaning against the door frame. He approached her and dropped his gear on the floor beside her. "Jess? What's wrong? Is Tasha alright?"

She threw her arms around him and hugged him, her tears warm against his neck. She sniffled and wiped her face. "I'm sorry," she said at his worried and bewildered expression. "Everything is fine. Nothing is different than before. It's all the same. It's just hard when your best friend doesn't recognize you. She's a different person. I just, I wanted you to know... before you went in there. It's bad. I'm so sorry, Clint. She really loved you, and you were good to her. I'm sorry I didn't see it before."

Clint nodded absently at her and patted her shoulder, gently disentangling himself from her. He regarded her awkwardly for a moment. "Ok... Um, thanks, Jess. I'm going to go see her now."

He was glad to see they had added some simple furniture to the room and given her a modicum of privacy in the small bathroom annex. Although Hulk containment had been the primary purpose of the room, they had recognized that having temporary accommodations for unwilling "guests" would also be useful.

"Hey, Nat," he said casually, as he walked up to the thick clear polycarbonate barrier. "Fancy seeing you here."

Natalia studied him coldly. "You," she spat, "You promised you wouldn't let them lock me up."

"I did," he affirmed. "And I'd like to get you out, but I can't yet. We need you to get your memories back."

"Vat is this memory-nonsense? My memory is fine." She defiantly held his gaze for a moment and then went back to assiduously scraping out the last of the caramel gelato with a thin cardboard spoon.

"Oh, yeah? What year is it?" She glared at him and looked away sullenly. "You aren't sure, are you? You think it's, what, 2004? Didn't you see a different year on the papers after you jumped off the train."

She shrugged. "You attacked me with a flying robot, you could change a few newspapers."

His brow furrowed as he thought of all the logistical difficulties with that. He wondered why she was playing obtuse on this. "What do you remember?" he asked curiously, hands on his hips.

"You knocked me out and then left me with a brute on a train. And then I was attacked by a man with a frisbee and a red and gold robot. Are you all Hydra?"

"What? No! We are Avengers," Clint turned and looked for Bruce or Jess, someone to explain that cryptic leap, but they were alone. "And what do you mean, I knocked you out?"

"You tazed me," she accused.

"You passed out from blood loss and infection and I carried you to the evac chopper. You had MRSA. You almost lost your leg. You underwent some pretty intensive treatments... Is that the last thing you remember before Rumlow and the train?"

She glared at him, but silence seemed as close to an ascent as he was likely to get from her. Clint pieced together the timeline as she experienced it: she agreed to go with him and then she woke up on the train where she seduced/was almost assaulted by Rumlow. She jumped off the train in Italy and found herself 10 years in the future. Iron Man and Cap must've been a strange shock for her. "How's your leg?"

She rubbed at the long-healed scar and snorted dismissively. "Am I being charged with a crime?"

"No, no. Hill took care of all that. You are still an Avenger and an agent of SHIELD, even if you don't remember. You aren't being charged. Cap is going to be fine. Rumlow, too."

"Who are you people that you can hold me against my will. If I am an agent of SHIELD and an _Avenger_ , why am I being held prisoner?"

He considered her words. "SHIELD wanted to detain you, but we thought it would be better if you were here with us, at Avenger's Tower."

"Who speaks for me? I do not know any of you. I vant to speak for myself."

"You can drop the phoney accent," he declared. "And, well, I suppose I'm the one that decided."

"What gives you that right?" she challenged.

"Natasha," he said quietly, "I'm your husband."


	11. Prove It

_**Date:**_ March 25th, 2014  
 _Almost no time has passed for our heroes. Let's just pretend this story hasn't been in cold storage, k?  
_ _-Lio_

* * *

"C'mon, Bruce, lemme talk to her."

"It won't do any good, Rick. She isn't going to know what… _who_ …. you are or have any idea what you are talking about. She doesn't remember anyone from SHIELD or the Avengers. I don't think seeing you in your present form is going to help. She was freaked out by Iron Man. What do you think she'd make of us? She doesn't know about _the other guy_. I don't think meeting…."

"A giant blue goblin?"

"That's not what I meant, Rick."

"It's all good, my friend. I'm loving being the A-Bomb. This is awesome!"

"I hope that doesn't change."

"Anyway, what about on the phone? I just want to _talk_ to her. To say sorry."

"Look, I know you feel responsible, but the sex tape isn't even the priority now. I don't even think that it figures into this mess. Let me worry about this; you should focus on your work with Dr. Samson. You've become the third person in history to survive a Gamma transformation and are the only one whose mind was unaffected. "

"Well, when you put it like that…."

"What you are doing now is a big help. What were you able to find out?"

"I compared the original feed to the leaked version. It's a really clumsy edit. Just some trimming and frame-acceleration and res-lowering and degradation of the interpolation with a standard algorithm….. Honestly, I could have done a better job using an app on my phone."

"Can you tell who leaked it?"

"No, they flushed the metadata. The network folks should have better luck on that than I will."

"Can you tell _why_ it was edited?"

"They might have just been looking for 'the good parts,' you know? Shorten it up. I don't think there is some greater conspiracy—the simplest explanation is usually the right one."

"Occam's Razor…. Right…."

"When you hear hoofbeats, don't go looking for zebras, man."

"Except on the savannah…. which is where I think we might be. I still don't have the measure of SHIELD. Everyone seems to have an agenda."

"You spent alotta time on the run, Brucey. You are too paranoid. They had three days of film. They cut it down to ten salacious minutes. No mystery there."

"Maybe…. Maybe… What about when Barton first approached her? Did you find that."

"Yep. I've got his body-cam and the audio from his comm. They usta store them separately but I put it back together for you. Why did you want it? I mean, the defection of the Black Widow is pretty epic, but what are you looking for?"

"It's the last thing she remembers. I want to see if there is something significant beyond the obvious. What about the footage from the train after STRIKE rescued her?"

"Nada. Sorry, my man. Look, I'm happy to help and all, but you know, I'm not a surveillance-tech anymore. This isn't really my gig nowadays."

"Thanks, Rick. I really do appreciate it. I'm drawing a blank and it's frustrating."

"You'll figure it out. I sent the files over. I didn't think you'd want it in the general Avengers box, so I put it all in your personal dropbox. Stark's, too."

"Just her defection, right? I don't want the more, uh, personal stuff."

"I sent it all, just in case."

"You sent the sex tapes to Tony?"

"Uh-huh. Original and edited footage. I packed it all up with PGP and …."

"You sent Natasha's… sex tape... to… Tony."

"Well, yeah. He's trying to sort this out too, right? And, all of SHIELD saw it…."

"Rick, when she gets her memories back, she really _is_ going to kill you."

* * *

"Prove it," Natalia spat. She glared down at him from the raised platform of her cell. _Husband_?! _Please._ Of all the deceptions they could use on her, this one was too implausible to comprehend.

He scratched the back of his neck. "Well, it's not formal or anything. SHIELD has some pretty strict non-frat regs."

She quirked an eyebrow as he floundered, unable to support his own cover, which irritated her more than the cover itself. "What I mean is, it's not on paper; we didn't use our real names. There are a few pictures and a video. It was an undercover op and then we just..."

Natalia knew the crushing power of a good, impassive stare. Properly deployed, it could wither a strong conviction, challenge firm logic or shake the foundations of the best-laid cover. He had already acknowledged the flimsiness of the story, but she enjoyed taking a sledgehammer to any lingering illusions any of them might have regarding her gullibility.

He had seemed all swagger and assurance on that roof; today, he seemed worn and tired. He was older than she remembered, too. She hadn't realized how sick she'd been; she must've been out of her mind to agree to run off with this American.

If he thought she would be moved by this display of weakness, he was even more of a fool than she'd first thought. But, perhaps, she considered this was the next phase of their intrigue. Often, frauds were exposed by the abundance of evidence in their favor. The last few days had been a parade of supposed evidence of her defection and the passage of time. Frankly, most of the footage was wildly unbelievable; Thor, Loki and aliens? The obsequious, disembodied voice calling itself Jarvis had shown some very sophisticated computer generated images, many that were nearly impossible to distinguish from reality.

The fake films of her along side of the anachronistic propaganda figure who called himself "Captain America" was both laughable and compelling — they certainly had managed to capture her fighting style. They had however slipped up; there had been video of Clint executing her distinctive roundhouse kick—that was simply lazy special effects; to reuse the same movements. Also, the elegant, near-precognitive fluidity with which her digital double and her supposed partner sparred and fought… no real persons could achieve that graceful perfection without a skilled choreographer or computer generation.

She wondered why they hadn't put forth a more dashing individual to pose as her spouse. While she had found the cocky archer appealing, he didn't seem an obvious choice. She wondered if she had betrayed something when he cornered her; she had been anticipating seducing him; perhaps in her weakened state, they took her modest appreciation for something more?

"How did the escape attempts go?" he asked, leaning back against the security console, the topography of his forearms striking as he folded them across his chest. His mouth quirked sardonically, still that distinctly American smile.

His abrupt change of subject and demeanor unbalanced her a bit and she looked up sharply. She thought she had been so subtle in her examination of her cell and its excellent and perplexing security. Her irritation betrayed far more than she planned to acknowledge.

"Not well, I take it. I mean, you're still here, right? I know you don't remember, but we helped test the security when they built this thing." He tapped on the polycarbonate and the sensors embedded in the frame. "Tony and Cap wanted to use it as a holding cell for unenhanced combatants.. You have yourself to thank for all those security redundancies. You found all the little blind spots. And once you couldn't escape on your own anymore, they locked us in to see if the two of us faired any better together."

"Did we?"

"Eventually, if you know what I mean," under the knowing leer he affected, she noted a fond, wistful expression.

Actually, he was very, very good; far better trained in deception and manipulation than she had first assumed. These three unlikely interrogators might successfully convince a lesser operative. But she was the Black Widow, for fuck's sake. Time to regain control of the situation.

"So, is that all you've got? A prisoner will always try to escape, so you flatter me with the security. You have a weak story about a secret wedding and toss in a few allusions to fucking me?" She tried her caustic stare again, but he was studying his boots.

"Wait, wait, I almost forgot," he shook his head with self-deprecation, "I spent half the flight staring at it. I guess it's not proof, but..."

He pulled off his glove and splayed his left hand on the barrier, considering her with eyes that seemed sheened with sorrow. She snorted derisively again and felt satisfied when he wiped the sincerity away and sniffed back the melodrama. Tattooed in black ink, three letters "NAT" with a red hourglass nestled in the crease of his ring finger. "We aren't supposed to have tattoos or other voluntary distinguishing marks so I had to get it real small."

"That must've hurt," she responded, the disinterest palpable in her voice.

He shrugged and scratched his neck again; the familiarity of the gesture rankled. "Probably not as much as yours." She scrutinized her hands but found no traces. "Uh, you got yours…. somewhere else." His gaze dropped guiltily to her chest then back up to her face.

She strode angrily to the small bathroom and unself-consciously yanked her shirt and sports bra up to her collarbone. She examined her body in the thick reflective polymer sheet that served as a mirror. Tucked under the curve of her left breast - a minute purple arrow; no name but the significance was unmistakable.

She marched back to him, her shirt still rucked up to her chin, her bare breasts bouncing with her steps. "Why is yours on your hand, and mine...here?" she demanded, trying to draw that penetrating gaze downward, away from her face.

"I got mine first," he shrugged, "You always try to outdo me." A wry smile twitched as sadness darkened his eyes, which steadfastly held hers, "Actually, you always _do_ outdo me."

She bit the inside of her cheek to remind herself that this was another lie, more deception, but as she watched him slowly deflating she wondered what the end game was. She fought back a pang of regret; for a moment, she caught herself wishing that the lie were true.

"Oh, hey! Yeah, sorry…" Bruce whirled around and nearly collided with Jess as he retreated.

Jessica remained in the doorway, taking in the tableau. The redhead was staring at her defiantly, daring her to look away. The naked emotion in Clint's expression discomfited her far more than Natalia's bare breasts.

Jess swore she saw a flash of hot shame before the woman who was not her friend covered herself and slunk back to her cot, glowering. Clint stooped to retrieve his glove, all his attention focused on putting it on as he pushed passed them, grabbed his rucksack and headed for the elevators.


	12. Need-to-Know

_**Date:**_ _March 25th, 2014_

"You okay?" Jessica asked when she caught up with Clint.

He ducked his head to hide his expression but nodded.

"Did you tell her?" He nodded again. "She believe you?" He shook his head and scrubbed his hand over his face. "I have the video of the wedding," Jess volunteered, "if you want to show it to her."

He acknowledged this with an ambiguous gesture before asking, "What did they do to her? I thought, maybe, there was more and they just weren't telling me until I got here."

"We are your friends, Clint," she said gently. "Friends don't operate on a need-to-know. Banner and Stark have been working around the clock, calling in favors trying to figure it out. But, I think… I think, whatever it was, it was really bad."

"Oh, you think?" Clint turned away and punched the wall. He rested his forehead against his fist, the tight anxiety holding him together slipped. He looked utterly defeated. "I've been going out of my mind, thinking about it. You know what we do. You know what we see." Jess nodded. They had all seen the horrors that men perpetrated on each other in the name of their various goals. "What the hell did they do to her? Is this some sort of mind control."

His shoulders tensed as he mentioned mind control; Jess knew he harbored deep regrets about his own experiences with it and she steeled herself before saying: "Some people are saying she has been under mind control all this time she's been with SHIELD and that she finally broke free."

He looked liked she'd just slapped him. "If you believe that, why are you even here?"

"Jesus, Clint," Jessica sighed. "You can be a real son of a bitch sometimes. You know I don't think that. At least I don't want to believe it. But we can't dismiss it, either. Look, I came to tell you in person that something isn't right at SHIELD. Something hasn't felt right for a while and now this thing with the sex tape and then Natasha attacking the STRIKE guys..."

"Waitaminute," Clint interjected, "Tasha didn't attack them. I did." Clint gave a quick summation of the incident, keeping it as dry and objective as a mission report.

"See, that's what I mean. Why would they do that? It makes no sense. I don't know who to trust; so much feels wrong. Those guys were only on administrative leave for a couple of days and their first mission back was to bring her in..."

"Yeah, and what the fuck is up with that? Where is Coulson and Fury?"

"I don't know. That's my point. Things aren't adding up. You two aren't the only ones who've been affected. Good agents are getting discredited, sent away on long term assignments or being kept away with busy-work or secret projects. Sitwell is on some secret installation in the middle of the Atlantic, half of STRIKE—the decent half—is still off with Cap. Carol is who-knows-where. Coulson's new protégés are all over the place… "

Clint looked dubious. "To what end? Who is behind it?"

"I don't know, but I feel like whatever happened to Natasha is part of it. The name Project Insight comes up a lot, but I can't find out about it."

"I've heard rumors about that too, but I don't know what it is, either," Clint admitted.

"And don't you think that in itself is strange?"

Clint shrugged wearily. "Not really, you said yourself; SHIELD _is_ need to know. Jessica, this doesn't make any sense. If they wanted her as a mole inside SHIELD, they would have done this a long time ago. She defected years ago and it wasn't like she was ever really hiding. Natasha has never betrayed SHIELD. She's been a solid agent for ten years.

Jessica's heart sank as she hit him with the last theory: "What if they wanted an agent inside the Avengers?"

"If they did, they did a pretty poor job. She's locked up, discredited and disgraced. Not the most inconspicuous way to compromise someone."

"She's discredited with SHIELD. The Avengers are standing with her. This might be a way to drive a rift between SHIELD and the Avengers."

He considered her words."Why just her? What about Cap? What about me?"

"Clint, after Loki and the helicarrier, what do you think your credibility is worth?" She laid a tentative hand on him, but he angrily shrugged her off, jaw set. After a long cold stare, he stalked away.

* * *

Bruce massaged his nose, his glasses pushed up on his forehead, not wanting to interrupt the quiet, intense conversation happening a few yards away but unwilling to step away from the increasingly volatile situation nor to endure Natalia's glower. He checked his drop-box for the videos Rick uploaded. The files were all there.

"So, that went well." Jessica eyed the good doctor with speculation, wondering if she could trust him with the theory that Clint had so roughly dismissed.

"I don't mean to pry, but are you okay? I know there is some history there…. " He gestured between Jessica and Clint's retreating back.

Jess pushed her hair out of her face and favored him with a sad smile, deciding to keep her theory to herself until she had more proof. The flash of anger fading, she felt guilty for springing this on Clint. "Yeah, I'm fine. This is just hard. We did have a bad break-up, but that was a long time ago. It wasn't a big deal, really. He was young and stupid," she sighed.

"So were you…. young, I mean," Bruce stammered. "I mean, you were both young."

"I don't think I was ever young," she admitted. "I think that's why Natasha and I get along so well. Neither of us ever got to be normal or have the luxury of being young. We have a lot in common, I guess…. I hated seeing her like that."

Banner's cheeks reddened.

"I meant scared and a prisoner, but I hated seeing her expose herself like that, too."

"Because she thought flashing her tits would fluster us?" he finished, intentionally using the crass phrase to lessen the tension.

It had the desired effect; a giggle collided with a sniffle and Jessica stifled the graceless noise. She decided to focus on the immediate problem of Natasha; Project Insight and her terrible worry that they were now confronted with the real Natasha Romanoff could wait a few hours. "What does she think is going on here? Does she remember Clint at all?"

"She does," Bruce confirmed. "She can access our public media files from her cell.r and Jarvis show her some pictures. She instantly identified him as the man who talked her into joining SHIELD and then tazed her and handed her over to Rumlow and Rollins."

"Well, when you put it like that, I'd be pissed, too." Jess frowned in puzzlement. "That's… Wow. That's all wrong. She was really sick when she came. I'm pretty sure he didn't taze her. I don't think he needed to, they did not expect her to survive."

"I just got off the phone with a friend who pulled their actual rendezvous from the archive. I just downloaded it. I think he sent the tapes Rumlow was taunting her with, too, if I understand what happened. Is that what you two were talking about?"

"Among other things," Jess evaded. "Were you able to get the train footage?"

"No, Rick doesn't think it exists. Maybe it doesn't matter. I'm going to go in here," he gestured with his laptop to a side room with a plush couch and chairs, "and see if there's anything that might help. Dum-E is bringing down some pizza if you'd like to join me."


	13. Raw Footage

_**Date:**_ _March 25th, 2014_

The footage was janky and washed out. Jess was reminded of how fast technology improved, comparing the ten year old video with the high-def capabilities of cameras a quarter of the size of the one that had recorded this; which, when she thought about is, were about the size of a quarter.

She sat beside Dr. Banner on the small couch; it was a couch, _not_ a love seat. No, not at all. They shared the pizza and watched the video in silence.

 _The image jumped and wavered with each arrow Clint let fly, his heavy breathing growing more apparent over the comm as the pursuit wended through the narrow alleys and up over the rooftops._

 _The audio was slightly out of synch and fuzzy. Since it was from Clint's comm link, his voice was much louder and clearer than Natasha's. Coulson sounded tinny but quite audible as he spoke from a SHIELD control room, his calm voice apprising his agent of traffic patterns and probable shortcuts._

" _Nice work, Barton. I knew you could talk her into coming in. The director will be pleased," Coulson praised after Clint addressed him with an unnecessarily ostentatious, You get all that?_

" _Yeah, I know," Clint drawled with a weary sigh, "It's on me."_

" _What are you…?" Coulson began as Clint continued to talk over him._

" _This is the right call, Phil. You know it is..."_

Jessica snorted, imagining the slight shift of posture that was the Coulson-equivalent of someone throwing up his hands in exasperation.

"I hate it when he's smart like that," Jessica grumbled to Banner as Clint pretended to argue with his handler. "Because he's right. Natasha wouldn't have believed SHIELD wanted to recruit her… She would have assumed it was a trick. But she'd be all about this..." She shook her head, and felt a pang for the weary woman, grainy and alone, on the screen. She looked nothing like her confident, dry-humored best friend, the unflappable badass who could snap a man's neck with her thighs and, after the fighting was done, discuss literature, world politics or the latest episode of _Dog Cops_ with equal relish.

Jessica missed her friend.

" _Ok… I know. I take full responsibility. Just send evac, yeah?" he finished as Natasha leaned on the bricks for support._

" _Don't overdo it, Agent." Coulson chided, but even his level tones conveyed relief in the precarious mission's success. "She doesn't look the least bit impressed."_

" _Blow me, Coulson," Clint responded, checking the effect of this exchange on his new charge. "Ok, you ready?" he asked her._

 _Clint released the catch to disarm the taser arrow; the electrified payload sparking out. Natasha, who had been looking greyer and weaker once all the fight had left her, flinched as the arrowhead bounced. Her knees gave way and she pitched forward._

 _The "catch-a-falling-body" reflex activated a half second before the thought: "Barton-you-dummy" seemed to register. He held her awkwardly, ready to drop her at the first hint of treachery, but she lay in his arms, dead weight and disheveled._

 _Coulson cleared his throat reproachfully. "Yeah, yeah, I know. She coulda killed me," Clint grumbled, the words pinched in this strained position. "Lecture me later. Just get the fucking bird here, ok?"_

" _It's 3 minutes out," Coulson said, "Be careful. Secure her, just in case."_

" _Shit. She's burning up," Clint murmured as he lay her on the roof slates. "Prep medical."_

 _As the evac chopper thrummed in the distance, Clint secured her feet and cuffed her wrists in front of her. He rolled her gently on her side to examine the dark patch on her outer thigh. He cut away the cloth, opening the seam below her hip, down to her knee. The soaked bandage fell away from the wound without the tension of her clothes to hold it in place. "Jesus," Clint gasped, "Are you seeing this, Phil? How the hell was she even standing?"_

Banner sat back, looking stunned, his first movement since the start of the video. He, doubtless, could diagnose the wound more specifically, but Jessica felt her revolted, "gah-eww!" was fairly comprehensive. The red ring around the injury bulged, stretching the flesh silvery and smooth. The white infection and red tissue were visible from the inflamed bullet wound.

" _Hey, Coulson," Clint said as he stooped to gather up the unconscious woman, her head lolling against him and blocking the camera. "You know how I told her I wouldn't let you guys throw her in prison?" The engine and the wind noise from the evac team roared over Coulson's acknowledgment. "Not going to be an issue," Clint continued,"I doubt she'll survive the week."_

Jess took another slice of pizza and folded it in half as the video ended. "Well, that was less than helpful," she sighed, "and gross. It confirmed that he didn't stun her into unconsciousness, but other than that…. Not much there."

"I'll be damned….How did we miss….?" Jess looked in surprise at her companion, his introspective look focused wholly on the screen. He reached for the sheaf of documents at his side, thumbed through them and fanned them at his side. He seemed to find the one he wanted and squinted at it accusingly.

With a mumble that might have been ' _Excuse me_ ,' Bruce gathered up the papers and left the room. His pace quickened as he hastened down the hall, pursuing whatever idea had struck him.

"Well, then," Jess said, holding the pizza up to the slender black robotic assistant, "are you going to help me finish this?"

Dum-E's ocular unit trained on the box, the gears that controlled its focal adjustment whirring and adding to the general impression of curious alertness. It cocked its clawed grip like a dog considering a proffered treat and, taking the box, trundled from the room.

As Natalia had rearranged her clothes, she pulled on the waistband of her pants and examined the faded pale line on her leg. The hideous wound now resembled a long-healed surgical scar, flat and precise. She flexed the muscle and felt no lingering tightness or pain. She scratched at the skin; it itched and tingled like most scars, like most _old_ scars.

She sat sullenly on the shelf-bed, watching the door. All three had retreated after she rejected their latest manipulation and she steeled herself for their next salvo. She wondered idly which would try next.

She tried to conjure the sense of satisfaction she knew was the appropriate response to successfully thwarting her captors, but she felt numb.

The man who entered was a stranger, but she knew him from data files she'd been allowed to access. In the ones that looked like celebrity news reports, he usually had on an expertly tailored suit, looking both impossibly hip and carelessly rumpled. Today, he wore a faded t-shirt and no shoes. His toes poked through the holes in his socks and his dark hooded sweatshirt looked 15 years old. His jeans, though, probably cost more than many people on the planet made in a year.

"You look different without your suit," Natalia observed. "I thought you'd be taller."

"I _am_ a little short for a stormtrooper, but I'm not here to rescue you, Princess." He waggled a slim device at her and dropped it into the chamber at the front of her cell. "This is however, the droid you are looking for."

She rolled her eyes. What _was_ it with these people?

"Jarvis can interface with it for you, but I figured you wouldn't want it up there..." He waved at the wall on the onto which they had previously projected movies and images. "You enjoy your private screening."

Natalia waited until she was sure Tony Stark had left before she let her curiosity carry her over to the handheld. The screen was about size of a paperback and remarkably thin.

"Ms. Romanoff? Do you require my assistance?"

She bristled at the precise voice and her thumb brushed the device, illuminating the screen. Ignoring "Jarvis," she jabbed at the bright icons as she'd seen Banner doing. She easily navigated this simple interface after several days of studying the impossibly advanced tech second-hand.

The file names consisted of timestamps, all dating in early September of 2012 and usually in the middle of the night. An innocuous thumbnail image heralded each recording; an interior view of a simply appointed space shot over the shoulder of a man with short, sandy hair.

Natalia selected the one at the top: _2012-09-06T01:03:47_ and began to view the recording. She skipped ahead at 2 minute intervals at to find the significant portion.

Once she did, she sat on her bunk and watched from the beginning, not bothering to conceal her stunned fascination.


End file.
